Drug Courts: Equivocal Evidence on a Popular Intervention, Joanne Csete & Denise Tomasini-Joshi (2015)

Date: 01 February 2015

This document analyses the issues around drug treatment courts, acknowledging other alternatives to criminal sanctions for minor drug offenses (such as health and social service interventions or decriminalizing these offences).

While the UN and other multilateral bodies agree that alternatives to conviction and punishment should be provided, there is no consensus that the drug courts are the only means of providing them. In fact, there is much controversy around them because of the methodological difficulties in assessing their effectiveness.

Citation: Joanne Csete & Denise Tomasini-Joshi, 'Drug Courts: Equivocal Evidence on a Popular Intervention', Open Society Foundations (2015)