Drug Court addicts plead to go to jail

ADDICTS have found Drug Court programmes so tough they have pleaded to be allowed quit and go to jail instead.

But despite the high dropout and expulsion rates among participants, the two-year-old pilot scheme is to be extended for a further six months and take in new areas of Dublin.

Judge Gerard Haughton yesterday defended the record of the scheme, which has produced six graduates out of 118 referrals since it began taking in participants from the inner city Dublin 1 area in January 2001.

A further 35 people are currently at various stages of the programme, which takes up to 18 months to complete, but a greater number were deemed ineligible to take part and a further 23 had their participation terminated because they re-offended, went back on drugs or failed to keep court appointments.

Judge Haughton said, however, the once-weekly court was no great burden on the taxpayer as it was being funded from within the Court Service’s existing budget and its success stories made it a worthwhile venture.

He cited the example of a graduate in his thirties who had been in and out of jail since his early teens and had passed through numerous conventional rehabilitation and treatment programmes without success. He was now drug-free, had a job, and was helping out with newcomers to the scheme and doing voluntary community work.

“It must be more efficient and less expensive than keeping people in prison,” Judge Haughton said.

He also dismissed the idea the programme was a soft option for offenders. “Some have found it too hard and asked voluntarily to come off it and go back to jail,” he said.

The Drug Court is designed to provide an alternative to prison for people who have committed offences relating to their addiction. Anyone charged with an offence involving violence is not eligible.

Graduates have their charges struck out but they can be recharged any time in the next 12 months if their behaviour slips.