Drug Courts — Just the Beginning: How to Get Other Areas of Public Policy in Sync? Addressing Continuing Collateral Consequences for Drug Offenders

Abstract

In 2003, I prepared an article for the Middle Eastern-Mediterranean Summer Institute on Drug Use: “Drug Courts – Just the Beginning: Getting Other Areas of Public Policy in Sync” which highlighted five areas of public policy in the U.S., unconnected to the criminal justice, that imposed significant ― and generally lifetime ― sanctions on drug court graduates regardless of their successful completion of a drug court program and termination from criminal justice supervision. At that time, the extensive research corroborating the effectiveness of drug courts in reducing drug use, recidivism and promoting long term recovery was just beginning to be disseminated, along with scientific findings relating to the neurobiology of addiction, its effects on the brain and cognitive functioning ― all confirming that drug use was a symptomatic of a chronic disease and far more than a “behavioral” issue and/or moral failing.

Given these extensive research findings, as well as over a decade of drug court experience at the time, it was therefore discouraging, but not unexpected, that the impact of the research had not yet affected public policy and practice in sectors not directly involved with drug offending and/or treatment. Given the commonly held premise that it takes seventeen years for research to affect practice, I prepared this “update” to determine the degree to which these research findings have now “infiltrated” practice.

The intention in preparing this “Update” ten years later was to document progress made in reducing these areas of stigma ― come to be known as “collateral consequences” ― in light of the tremendous growth of drug courts since the article was first published in 2003, both in the U.S. and abroad, the widely documented effectiveness of these programs in stemming continued drug use and crime, and the growing body of research documenting addiction as a chronic disease for which treatment has proven effective and incarceration in and of itself to be counter-effective. The expectation was that progress in removing stigma associated with addiction would have been significant during these years.

The results, however, have been the opposite.

While there has been some progress, it has been slow and spotty, and the situation in 2014 can be characterized by continued stigma imposed by multiple sectors of public policy on individuals who have successfully completed drug court programs and which, in many instances, extend for their lifetime. Not only do the major areas of stigma described in the 2003 article continue but, in addition, the preparation of this “Update” has uncovered numerous additional “collateral consequences” that hadn’t formally surfaced in 2003 ― exclusions regarding the right to adopt children, grounds for divorce, and a host of professional license requirements.

Keywords: collateral consequences, drug addiction, drug offenses, stigma