The Naperville Sun is reporting that the DuPage County Drug Court will now accept people charged with Driving Under the Influence. This reverses a previous decision that was criticized by a number of groups, including officials in Kane County (who accept people with DUI charges in their drug court). Those officials suggested that DuPage was trying to make its statistics more impressive at the cost of greater effectiveness.
According to the Naperville Sun, drug-court coordinator Robin Partin has said that DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett, a member of the multi-disciplinary team that makes policy for the drug court, recently changed his position on the drug court accepting DUI cases. Birkett, who has run for state office before, recently suggested he was planning another run at an unspecified higher office, and is likely to be positioning himself as more progressive on law and order issues. In his last run Birkett was tainted by the Rolando Cruz prosecution that he was involved in towards its end - a case of putting what many consider the wrong man on death row based on bad and likely illegal evidence and prosecutorial conduct that resulted in a pardon. The Cruz case has likely hurt Birkett among moderates.
Birkett’s new drug court DUI position will help people see his “softer side” no doubt - but it’s also no doubt that this is good policy. DuPage, and its citizens, are better served by DuPage Drug Court expansion.
[Related update - New York state has finally gotten rid of some of its incredibly harsh “Rockefeller” drug laws affecting first time convictions - it isn’t anywhere near enough, but it is progress.]
Comments 2
Some of the cynics among us (no names, please) might suggest that over-expansion of drug courts sets them up to fail. If the drug courts are asked/ordered to address non-targeted populations, i.e. offenders for which the courts were not designed, then these specialized courts become less effective.
Then the critics of criminal court alternatives — and God knows they are out there — can point to the drug-courts failures and say, “See, I told you it wouldn’t work.”
The drug-court program needs to make certain that the drug-court is appropriate for the offenders and that the offenders are appropriate for the drug-court.
I am all for drug court, but I don’t want to see it fail by trying to be all things to all offenders.
Posted 08 Dec 2004 at 9:46 am ¶Hi So-Called “Austin Mayor”,
I understand the line of thought - but in this case I don’t agree with it. Joe Birkett has more to lose (I think) if things go bad just before/during his run for state office than if he had just left things alone. Blame always goes further than credit - and it appears he was the dealmaker this time - so the blame would fall disproportionately on his head.
Secondly, DuPage has been pretty slow to have a drug court to begin with, with surrounding counties like Kane way ahead of us, and unlike a lot of jurisdictions DuPage didn’t handle DUI cases, until now. How stringent a program is the DuPage Drug Court? See the “Basics” below.
Some Basics About The DuPage Drug Court
- Each client must be a DuPage County resident, 17 or older;
- They must have pending nonviolent felony charges;
- They must be an addict and be a legal resident of the United States;
- They cannot have any out-of-county charges pending;
- Candidates for the program are initially evaluated for six-weeks to determine the nature of their addiction;
- Participants must agree to a two-year probation, appearing before a judge to enter a treatment program;
- Once out of residential treatment, defendants see judges weekly and meet with a probation officer multiple times every week;
- Participants face frequent drug tests;
- Relapses result in increased sanctions, including increased reporting and treatment;
- New crimes and DUI result in a termination of the probation and the offender then serves their sentence;
- Their treatment/program comes from a multi-disciplinary group including judges, prosecutors, drug counselors/treatment centers and drug court officers; and
- Up until now defendants could not have a DUI case pending.
Nothing is perfect, but the drug court attempt at rehabilitation has been proven to significantly reduce recidivism 17 - 40% - and even just logic tells you that trying to treat addicts intensively with the threat of jail time forcing them to adhere to the regimen will produce more non-addicts than never treating them at all and letting them sit in prisons (where drugs are sometimes even available). Birkett bowed to reality, and it ended up being the right thing to do this time around (if later than it should have been).
Posted 09 Dec 2004 at 11:05 pm ¶Post a Comment