Overcrowded court dockets and packed to the brim county jails and state prisons certainly require alternatives, and officials are starting to realize that the court system cannot continue to do it the same old way and expect a different outcome.They are looking for alternatives to costly jail and prison time for drug offenders and in St. Clair County and other judicial circuits across the state, they think they have found an answer in a new concept called drug court.
And we think they’re right.
Alabama Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb is pushing the expansion of drug court to all judicial circuits across the state, rightly reasoning that by treating the cause instead of the symptoms, it should diminish the drug-related problems in this state.
Drug court offers an alternative to the usual lock ‘em up and throw away the key approach that simply compounds the problems faced by the legal system from start to finish. Meanwhile, the taxpayers continue to take a hit in the pocketbook to fund larger jails and more prisons that don’t address the root of the problem.
Court dockets may say burglary or theft or a variety of other charges, but trace their origin, and they will traditionally point back to drugs. The way to attack those growing charges is not jail time exclusively, there must be alternatives, like treatment, to help put the offender back on a more productive path.
Drug courts enable judges to employ other methods than a prison sentence to reverse the trend, and they ought to be encouraged and supported.
The chief justice is right to make the push, and we hope that circuits across Alabama will join the momentum. It will only work to their benefit.
