For generations the conflict on medication has raged in our state, communities and even our personal households.
Nonetheless, the issue stays — seemingly as entrenched as ever.
For decade after decade, we now have tried to sort out the issue of drug habit with extreme legal guidelines and jail time.
And simply because the saying goes, it’s insane to maintain making an attempt the identical factor and count on completely different outcomes.
That’s why we applaud District Lawyer Constance Filley Johnson for making good on a marketing campaign promise to determine a brand new drug court docket program in Victoria County. We additionally applaud county commissioners for supporting that court docket program with a resolution approving its creation at a mid-Might assembly.
Dubbed the Group Alliance for Restoration and Empowerment Courtroom or CARE Courtroom, Victoria County’s drug court docket seeks to offer nonviolent drug offenders with habit restoration assets and coverings in addition to life abilities that embody job coaching and coping mechanisms.
For too lengthy, we now have taken a purely punitive method to these accused of crimes who’ve addictions to medication, and, up to now, we now have little success to point out for that method.
Near 1/3 of Texas inmates are admitted into the jail system due to drug offenses.
And about 60% of Texas inmates have some type of chemical dependency, based on a 2014 testimony from a former TDCJ director.
These final two statistics are regarding not solely due to the destruction suffered in households’ and folks’s lives. In addition they trace at one other draw back — the immense prices and inefficiency that comes with a tough-on-crime method to battling substance habit.
Based on a Texas Criminal Justice Coalition article, incarcerating an individual in jail is about seven occasions dearer than group supervision with therapy. That provides up fast contemplating Texas has about 140,000 individuals behind bars in prisons and state jails.
On the opposite aspect of the equation, there’s now ample proof exhibiting the effectiveness of drug courts.
A current research by a UHV researcher confirmed that Victoria County’s DWI court docket had an about 83% success price between 2007-2020.
Research have proven that individuals of drug courts, when in comparison with those that didn’t take part, re-offend at significantly lower rates.
Though the effectiveness of Victoria County’s drug court docket stays to be seen, no less than the method is a brand new one and one that’s backed by proof.
It’s a possible resolution in a battle that appears to have gone nowhere.
It might be straightforward to say those that commit drug crimes ought to be locked up, however that method ignores the truth that many with addictions have merely misplaced management of themselves and can’t get higher even when they wish to.
That’s why we have to start fascinated with substance habit much less as an ethical failing and extra of a illness that may be cured.
We can not quit on these with addictions and write them off as merely criminals. We now have to maintain making an attempt to assist, and we hope and pray that Victoria County’s drug court docket will make a distinction.
This opinion displays the views of the Victoria Advocate’s editorial board.
