TODAY’S NON -VIOLENT DRUG USER IS OFTEN TOMORROW’S VIOLENT CRIMINAL

Drug courts, which were designed to divert non-violent drug users out of the pipeline to prison, have a 60 percent failure rate with many of those failing to stay clean becoming violent criminals

The diversionary programs of drug courts, a favorite of President Obama and his fellow liberals, were designed to take non-violent drug users out of the pipeline to prison. But with a 60 percent failure rate, the drug courts merely lengthen that pipeline and many of those drug users who fail to stay clean will become violent criminals.

The latest killing of a New York police officer is an example of today’s non-violent drug user becoming tomorrow’s violent criminal. However, I should add that in this case the courts overlooked that the cop killer had been in a previous shootout.

N.Y. POLICE OFFICER’S SLAYING PUTS ‘DRUG COURTS’ UNDER SCRUTINY

Associated Press
October 22, 2015

NEW YORK — Arrested in a 19-person drug sweep, Tyrone Howard was one of only three who got sent to drug court, which offered him treatment instead of prison.

Eight months later, Howard is behind bars on murder charges, accused of putting a bullet in the head of a police officer who was chasing him Tuesday.

Officer Randolph Holder’s slaying has raised questions about the risks and potential shortcomings of drug courts, or drug diversion programs, that have been embraced nationwide as a way to ease jail overcrowding and reduce crime by attacking it at one of its sources: drug abuse.

New York’s mayor and police commissioner have branded Howard a career criminal who had once been arrested in a 2009 gunfight on an East Harlem basketball court and should not have been out on the streets.

“He would have been the last person in New York City I would’ve wanted to see in the diversion program,” Police Commissioner William Bratton said.

Yet the judge who handled the case said Howard — a longtime PCP user who despite his long rap sheet had no convictions for violent crimes — was a compelling candidate for drug court.

“I don’t get a crystal ball when I get the robe,” said state Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin. He defended his decision as “accurate and appropriate,” saying that doing time hadn’t helped Howard before. He also said he was never made aware of the 2009 shooting case.

Since their start in Miami in 1989, drug diversion programs have multiplied to 2,500 courts across the country, together handling about 120,000 cases a year, according to the federal National Office of Drug Control Policy.

The agency calls the programs “a proven tool for improving public health and public safety.” President Obama mentioned them approvingly in a speech this summer about alternatives to prison, saying such programs can save taxpayer dollars.

Drug courts are generally for nonviolent offenders who commit crimes to feed their addictions, though some programs allow people with somewhat more serious records. The courts use treatment, drug testing, incentives and penalties to try to get defendants sober and straightened out.

Studies have credited drug courts with reducing recidivism and drug-use relapses. Some research estimates those reductions save society more money than the treatment costs, though some studies have found the opposite, according to a 2011 congressional report. Advocates say the courts also reduce the risk of domestic violence and child abuse.

“We can hold people accountable for their dangerous actions, while at the same time providing them with needed treatment and other services they need to change their lives,” the National Association of Drug Control Professionals says.

But some research has also found drug-court dropout rates of 60 percent, said David Lilley, a criminal justice professor at the University of Toledo.

Advocates for more liberal drug laws have complained that while some offenders respond well to treatment, those with tougher-to-overcome problems still end up behind bars for breaking program rules.