Pubdate: Sun, 04 Oct 2015
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2015 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.ottawasun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.ottawasun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329
Author: Jason Gilbert
Page: 16

DRUG TREATMENT COURTS WORK

Every Tuesday afternoon at the Elgin Street courthouse, a large group
of drug-addicted offenders participating in a one-year program of
treatment and rehabilitation assembles in courtroom 8.

Drug Treatment Court participants appear before a judge, who is given
a weekly report on their progress from counsellors with Rideauwood
Addiction and Family Services.

A positive report gets a participant praise from the judge and others
in the courtroom, and possibly a coffee card.

Negative feedback could lead to sanctions ranging from a few hours
community service, to a few days in the slammer, to outright expulsion
from the program.

Ottawa's Drug Treatment Court was established in 2006. Judge Peter
Wright, who now presides in Perth, Ont., sat as an Ottawa judge for
more than 20 years. He was instrumental in pioneering this city's Drug
Treatment Court a decade ago.

In a 2013 interview I conducted with him for a Rogers TV show I
hosted, Justice Wright described the objective of the Drug Treatment
Court as providing help to addicts committing criminal offences, and
giving those offenders another chance to break the cycle of the crimes
they're committing in order to feed their drug habit.

Most offenders in Drug Treatment Court are longstanding addicts who've
been in and out of jail for years as a result of their
addiction-fueled crimes.

The program generally requires a commitment of at least one year. To
be admitted to the program, offenders must first plead guilty to their
charges.

For the first three to four months, participants spend five hours a
day in group therapy and meetings with addictions counsellors.

In the second phase of the program, in addition to ongoing treatment
and sobriety, participants are expected to do volunteer work, get a
job or get back into school.

If an offender completes the Drug Treatment Court program
successfully, they are guaranteed to serve no jail time, even if their
crimes would normally attract significant custodial terms.

Of course, Drug Treatment Courts come with a cost, with annual funding
across Canada at about $3.6 million for each of the past 10 years.

But this year, the federal government downloaded administration of the
funding to the provinces, allowing those that don't have a Drug
Treatment Court, such as Prince Edward Island, to start one up.

While this sounds great conceptually, it also means that each of
Canada's existing Drug Treatment Courts gets a smaller portion of the
available funding.

And in the case of Ottawa's Drug Treatment Court, this means the
previous funding amount of $550,000 per year is being reduced to a
mere $400,000.

When one considers that the cost of warehousing an offender in a
federal prison is well over $300 a day, and federal corrections
spending totals around $3 billion a year, the cost of running the Drug
Treatment Court program seems like pocket change.

And to think that for the lousy half a million dollars we're spending
on Ottawa's Drug Treatment Court, we're actually rehabilitating
offenders and helping them become self-sufficient, contributing
members of society. The alternative is they add to costs associated
with social assistance, health care, law enforcement, court
proceedings, community supervision and incarceration.

We can debate the merits of the war on drugs until we're blue in the
face. But the war on drug addiction is a battle we can never stop fighting.

You just need to attend one Drug Treatment Court graduation ceremony
to see how worthwhile the program really is.

The offender's friends and family are invited, sometimes people
they've been estranged from for years. The offender is congratulated
by everyone in the courtroom.

As Judge Wright put it, the graduation ceremony is "a very moving part
of (Drug Treatment Court). There are often a lot of tears."
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