Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Drug Court

The local drug court program has made the front page of the Jackson Sun today. It has been in operation since 2003 with 54 graduates from the program in a 4 year span. Although there have been only 54 graduates in 4 years, they boast a 74% success rate in that they have helped keep those who were on drugs, off.
The drug court here has only 2 paid staff and the biggest out-of-pocket cost is the drug testing kits. The court employs both sanctions and rewards for those going through the program. They offer gift certificates among other things as rewards and such things as write-offs for sanctions (where you would write such things as "I will not forget to call in" 200 times).

You can read more here.

Some questions:

-What are your thoughts on the drug court?
-Have you ever been involved with one?
-What are your thoughts on tax dollars going for incentives such as gift certificates?
-Knowing drug issues are a big problem in our community, what do you think about the numbers who have graduated from the program?

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