Current status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 30 March 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive when it will publish the final evaluation of the drug court pilots in Glasgow and Fife and what plans there are for the future of these courts.
The final evaluation of the Glasgow and Fife drugcourts will be published today and can be accessed at the following weblinks:
Report.http://sh45inta/Resource/Doc/100021/0024203.pdf.
ResearchFindings http://sh45inta/Resource/Doc/47121/0020290.pdf.
Thereport is broadly positive, finding that a sizable proportion of individualsmade subject to Drug Court Orders were able to achieve and sustain reductions indrug use and associated offending behaviour. The report also states that offenderswho completed their orders had fewer convictions in the two years after being madesubject to an order than in the two years immediately before, and that there wasand is widespread support for the drug courts both from those working within themand from other criminal justice professionals, such as sheriffs sitting in othercourts.
Onthe basis of the report, I have decided that both drug courts will now continue.They will operate a composite model that will embrace the strengths of both existingmodels. The position of the drug courts will then be reviewed in three years timeagainst the progress made with the summary justice reforms.
There are, however, clear lessonsto be learned from the success of the drug courts – about successful multi-agencyworking, about working to shared agendas and about the benefits of adopting a problemsolving approach to delivery. We will apply these lessons across Scotland andwill take them forward through the reducing reoffending agenda and through the summaryjustice reforms. At present there is no plan for further drug courts given the nationalcoverage of Drug Treatment and Testing Orders - disposals which incorporate themost important features of the drug court and which have been shown to have successin dealing with this client group.