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THE GLASGOW DRUG COURT IN ACTION: THE FIRST SIX MONTHS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Background
Drug Courts aim to reduce drug misuse and associated offending by offering treatment based options outwith the traditional court setting and have been established in a number of different jurisdictions with different populations of offenders. In October 2001 Scotland's first Drug Court was established in Glasgow Sheriff Court, operating under summary proceedings. The introduction of the new Drug Court followed the report of a Working Group for Piloting a Drug Court in Glasgow (thereafter referred to as the Working Group) which concluded in May 2001 that the establishment and operation of a Drug Court in Glasgow was feasible within existing legislation. The objectives of the new Drug Court are to:
- reduce the level of drug-related offending behaviour;
- reduce or eliminate offenders' dependence on or propensity to use drugs; and
- examine the viability and usefulness of a Drug Court in Scotland using existing legislation, and to demonstrate where legislative and practical improvements might be important.
The proposed target group for the Drug Court is offenders aged 21 years or older of both sexes, in respect of whom there is an established relationship between a pattern of serious drug misuse and offending and whose drug misuse is susceptible to treatment. Offenders referred to the Drug Court must otherwise have been facing prosecution in the Sheriff Summary Court and should normally first appear before the summary court from custody.
The Glasgow Drug Court is staffed by two sheriffs on a part-time basis. Each sits in the Drug Court (Court Two in the Glasgow Sheriff Court complex) for four days per week on alternating weeks. A procurator fiscal has been assigned to the Drug Court to identify potential referrals to the Drug Court and to deal with new charges and breaches of Drug Court Orders. A multi-agency Drug Court Team has been established to review the working, development and operation of the Drug Court. It comprises representatives of the stakeholders involved in the Drug Court pilot, namely the Drug Court Sheriffs, the Sheriff Clerk, the Drug Court Procurator Fiscal, the Project Leader of the Drug Court Supervision and Treatment Team (see below), a Drug Court Medical Officer, a senior social worker, a senior dedicated worker from Phoenix House (the voluntary organisation contracted to provide treatment services), a representative of the police and a representative of the Glasgow Bar Association. A Drug Court Co-ordinator facilitates the work of the Drug Court Team.
A Drug Court Supervision and Treatment Team was established to support the Drug Court in all aspects of assessment, supervision, treatment, testing and reports to the court. It consists of a team leader, supervising social workers, addiction workers, treatment providers and medical staff who are located together in shared premise. It was intended that each offender made subject to a Drug Court Order would have a Case Group, consisting of a supervising social worker, addiction worker and medical officer. The staffing level of the Supervision and Treatment Team has changed over the period of the pilot, reflecting the resource demands of Drug Court Orders and Drug Treatment and Testing Orders over this period.
The Working Group highlighted the importance of the Pilot Drug Court being subject to independent evaluation from the outset. Evaluation was deemed important as a means of establishing the extent to which the objectives of the Drug Court during the pilot period are met. A research team at the University of Stirling - who had previously evaluated the introduction of pilot Drug Treatment and Testing Orders in Glasgow and Fife - was commissioned by the Scottish Executive to evaluate the pilot.
The research will consist of two main phases. This report presents the findings from a formative and process evaluation of the Drug Court's operation in the first six months. The aim was to document the operation of the Drug Court during this initial period with a view to identifying any changes that might be required to enhance its operational effectiveness. The second main phase of the research will take the form of an outcome evaluation. The outcome evaluation will continue to assess the operational effectiveness of the Drug Court over the course of the pilot. Importantly, however, it will also examine the effectiveness of the Drug Court in securing compliance with court orders and bringing about reductions in drug use and associated offending.
METHODS
The evaluation of the Glasgow Drug Court's first six months of operation involved a variety of research methods aimed at the collection of both quantitative and (primarily) qualitative data. Fieldwork included:
- Interviews with 38 professionals associated with the Drug Court
- Interviews with 8 Drug Court clients
- Collection of information from Drug Court records
- Observations of screening group meetings, first callings, pre-court review meetings and review hearings during February, March and April 2002.
FINDINGS
Referral to the Drug Court
When the Drug Court was established it was envisaged that the main referral route would be through the 'flagging up' of custody cases by the police. In practice, however, just over one-third of the cases referred to a screening group were identified in this way. Initial referrals appeared to rely upon the knowledge and enthusiasm of individual police officers and was therefore, variable across the city. It also appeared that police officers were not fully conversant with the Drug Court referral criteria.
Cases considered potentially suitable for the Drug Court by the Drug Court Procurator Fiscal were referred to a screening group attended by the Fiscal, the defence agent, a social worker, a police officer and, on occasion, an addiction worker. The screening group was viewed as an effective mechanism for filtering out inappropriate referrals.
The Drug Court referral criteria were thought by most of those associated with the Drug Court as realistic and appropriate, especially since offenders under 21 years of age were unlikely to be sufficiently motivated or mature to cope with the Drug Court regime. Some concern was expressed that women were not being referred in sufficient numbers because their offences were often deal with by the district court.
By early May 2002, 77 cases had been referred to a screening group, 61 of whom were considered potentially suitable for the Drug Court. It appeared that the criteria were being appropriately applied in the filtering out of inappropriate cases at this stage. By mid-May, 68 cases had been referred for a Drug Court assessment.
Whilst assessment reports were usually available at the first calling of the case in the Drug Court, this sometimes did not happen as a result of staff shortages, or the failure of the individual to attend the assessment appointments. There was a general desire among those involved in the Drug Court to reduce the four-week assessment period, though this was not considered to be feasible within existing resources.
Sentencing and Treatment
It is evident that Drug Court clients are willing to accept the requirements of a Drug Court Order for a number of reasons. At the initial stage of assessment, this willingness is, for many individuals, an attempt to avoid custody (either sentence or remand) and may even increase the likelihood that an offender will plead guilty. However, it is clear that additional motivation is required to ensure compliance with the stringent demands that are made of all Drug Court Clients. The requirements of treatment and testing are stressed throughout the assessment process by service-providers to ensure that offenders are fully informed of their obligations and possible sanctions.
The range of sentences available to Drug Court Sheriffs is considered to be effective and appropriate. Although the Drug Court has the same range of disposals available to it as the Sheriff Court under summary proceedings, the ethos of the Drug Court differs significantly. It is seen by all involved to be less punitive and more constructive, a situation considerably enhanced by the direct dialogue which takes place between the Sheriff and offender. Sheriffs believed that their sentencing decisions were better informed than in the Sheriff Court due to the more comprehensive and focused Social Enquiry Reports and drug assessments which are made available to them. Deferred sentences were seen to afford some flexibility in sentencing, while reservations were expressed by Sheriffs about the introduction of Restricted Liberation Orders (RLOs) and their suitability for offenders in receipt of drug treatment.
Treatment services included a range of provisions provided by the Drug Court Team and external service providers. The services included counselling, prescribing, access to day programmes and primary medical care. However, it was notable that substitute prescribing (using methadone) constituted the core element of the treatment service in practice. Concerns were expressed by members of the Supervision and Treatment team, and drug court clients, that the operational regime lacked flexibility and that levels of medication provided were not always in compliance with the wishes of individual clients. While prescribing is clearly a matter for the medical profession, there was some suggestion that increased dialogue in monitoring and reviewing patterns of prescribing would be beneficial. There also appeared to be a broadly based desire for more comprehensive service provision and a broader range of services being made available to the Drug Court. In particular, Treatment and Supervision staff identified the need for increased rehabilitation services, and specifically rehabilitation and community-based services that met the needs of women.
Drug testing forms a key component of Drug Court Orders with clients tested twice weekly at the beginning of an Order. Relapse is recognised as a possibility and time is allowed to enable clients to stabilise their drug use before reducing/ending it. However, there are clearly practical and ethical issues relating to the testing procedures itself and consideration needs to be given to improving this. Nevertheless, drug court clients saw testing as a largely positive element of the Order, viewing it as a significant motivating factor. Obtaining negative test results was viewed as a clearly defined goal, particularly given the prominence of this issue during reviews, and the dialogue between clients and the Drug Court Sheriff.
Reviews and Enforcement
Pre-court review meetings were perceived to be a beneficial component to the process of supervising and treating clients on Drug Court Orders. The thorough private exchanges of information around the multi-agency table, chaired by the Drug Court Sheriff, informed and shaped the nature of the dialogue presented at the review with the client. While some offenders wished they were able to attend pre-court review meetings, all were confident that their progress was discussed in a fair and appropriate manner.
Review meetings were held in open court, a transparency that was perceived by the Drug Court Sheriffs as valuable to maintaining public confidence in the Glasgow Drug Court in its pilot stage. Sheriff-client dialogues were at the heart of reviews, ranging from 20 per cent to all of the review time. The sentencers on their side generally offered words of encouragement, regardless of progress and the clients on their side were honest, responsive and usually co-operative. The concept of drug use as a relapsing condition was recognised by Drug Court Sheriffs and emphasised particularly in shrieval dialogue.
Supervision and Treatment Team workers took active steps to respond to instances of non-compliance. The Drug Court Sheriffs had a number of sanctions without recourse to formal breach proceedings, although sentencers believed that the range of actions currently available to the Drug Court was insufficient. During the first six months of the pilot Drug Court in action, only one Order had been breached and Drug Court Sheriffs has made very few amendments to Orders to encourage compliance.
Effectiveness of the Drug Court
There was a general optimism among those involved in the operation of the Drug Court that it would be successful in reducing drug use and associated offending behaviour. All of those on Drug Court Orders who were interviewed reported significant reductions in drug use and offending and were positive overall about their experience of Drug Court treatment and supervision. Boredom was, however, a common problem and Drug Court clients would welcome more organised structure in their lives.
The main strengths of the Drug Court were perceived to be the 'fast-tracking' of offenders, the existence of a trained and dedicated team in regular contact with each other and the system of pre-court review meetings and reviews. The Drug Court Sheriffs reported feeling much better informed about drug use as a result of their contact with other professionals and with people on Drug Court Orders. There was support for the existence of a specialist Drug Court, including from among other sheriffs who sat in Glasgow Sheriff Court.
Issues around multi-disciplinary team working within the Supervision and Treatment Team were believed to have undermined the effectiveness of the services provided to people in Drug Court Orders. The management arrangements were said by staff to be unnecessarily complex, the premises were inadequate and the staffing levels were too low, resulting in unrealistic workloads for the social workers and addiction workers. Each of these factors undermine opportunities for a genuinely collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach.
The workload for different professional groups involved in the Drug Court was variable, being more manageable for the Sheriffs and less so for the Supervision and Treatment Team. The sheriffs who sat in the Drug Court did not believe that its introduction had impacted significantly - in either a positive or negative way - on the workload of the sheriff court.
Factors that the Drug Court Sheriffs thought would further enhance the operational effectiveness of the Drug Court included the availability of additional sanctions for non-compliance, a more sophisticated system of rewards and, possibly, the introduction of a mentoring system for people on Drug Court Orders.
CONCLUSIONS
The formative and process evaluation of the first six months of the pilot Drug Court in action suggests that the initiative has largely been a success, with the role of the Drug Court Sheriffs having been critical in this respect. Certain issues have been identified that will require particular attention in the next phase of the pilot. These include the police contribution to the referral process, the multi-disciplinary team-working, the workload of different professionals involved in the operation of the Drug Court and the availability of a wider range of sanctions and rewards for, respectively, non-compliance and progress. Overall, however, the Glasgow Drug Court was perceived to be very effective in providing a resource for drug-using offenders. The dedicated team and resources were viewed as a positive contribution to the reduction of drug-related offences in Glasgow.
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