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Drug Court Processes

Screening

Initial screening of potential participants in the Drug Court Program is performed by the Drug Court community corrections officer and is a preliminary process to determine a participant’s eligibility for a Drug Treatment Order. An offender’s eligibility for the program is assessed on three key criteria comprising the following considerations:

Demographic

Determines whether the participant is living in or has a significant connection to an area within the Dandenong or specified catchment area.

Justice

Considers an offender’s eligibility for the program based on prior and current offences.

Clinical

Confirms that a participant’s drug or alcohol abuse is a significant causal factor in the current and prior offences and also identifies any immediate intervention needs.

The screening of potential Program participants usually takes approximately 45 minutes to complete and also provides the potential participant with an awareness of the expectations and requirements of them should they be granted as eligible for the Program. This information allows the participant to provide fully informed consent if an Order is to be imposed. As part of the screening, the Drug Court community corrections officer will also identify areas where further reports are needed and determine immediate intervention or support requirements should the matter be adjourned for a Drug Court assessment and the participant is granted bail.

Assessment

Once a participant is approved for further assessment by the Drug Court magistrate, the matter will be adjourned for 21 days to allow for completion of a detailed assessment of the participant’s needs as well as determination of priorities in addressing these needs. The assessment will be undertaken by the Drug Court clinical adviser and the Drug Court case manager who both play different roles in the case management of each program participant.

The Drug Court clinical adviser will focus on identifying the major drug and alcohol, medical and psychiatric needs of the participant and work to prioritise and organise appointments for drug and alcohol treatment and other clinical issues as required. Any participant presenting with significant perceived psychiatric needs may also be assessed by the Forensicare community liaison nurse located at the court.

The Drug Court case manager will undertake an assessment of a participant in regard to any holistic or environmental issues that are impacting on a participant’s ability to address their drug usage. These issues may include accommodation suitability, family or peer issues, vocational and educational needs, life skills such as anger management and stress management and other treatment needs in regard to life issues, such as childhood trauma or abuse, adoption or unresolved grief. The Drug Court case manager will attempt to gain all relevant information in respect to these issues from the earlier clinical assessment so as not to duplicate questions for the participant.

The results of both assessments will be incorporated into the treatment plan that forms part of the Drug Treatment Order. Participants will be re-assessed periodically throughout the Order on the basis of changed circumstances, attainment of goals or unsatisfactory progress.

 

Hearings

Case Conference

Prior to the regular review of a participant’s advancement in the program, a case conference will be conducted to inform the Drug Court magistrate about the progress of the participant according to each member of the Drug Court team. At the case conference the Drug Court magistrate will hear from the Drug Court deputy registrar, Police prosecutor, Legal Aid officer, Drug Court clinical adviser and Drug Court case manager. The Drug Court team may discuss the following matters at the case conference regarding a participant’s involvement in the program:

• Ongoing performance of the participant in relation to drug use, treatment and compliance on the program.
• Possible variations of the Drug Treatment Order.
• Appropriate rewards and/or sanctions.
• Further offending or dealings with the police.

Regardless of what has been discussed and put forward at the case conference by the Drug Court team, no decision will be made officially until the participant is given the opportunity to be heard at the review hearing.

Other Parties:

The Drug Court magistrate may invite any person to the case conference who is thought necessary to inform the Drug Court team about the progress of the participant. This may include treatment providers who are dealing with the participant or family members of the participant. Under no circumstances is the participant to be present at the case conference.

Review Hearing

A review hearing allows for the ongoing judicial supervision of Drug Court participants throughout the life of the order. Review hearings may be weekly, fortnightly or monthly depending on which phase the participant is involved in. Those who attend the review hearing will include the Drug Court team consisting of the police prosecutor, Legal Aid officer, case manager and clinical adviser as well as any family members and/or friends the participant may bring with them for support. At the hearing, the Drug Court magistrate will speak directly with the participant to find out how he or she is going and discuss any issues that may have been raised by the Drug Court team in the case conference. The participant will then be provided with an opportunity to respond and give their opinion or version of events in relation to the issues raised. After hearing from the participant, the Drug Court magistrate will decide whether the participant’s order needs to be varied or a reward or sanction should be imposed. The participant will need to sign a new Drug Treatment Order before they leave the court.

 

Rewards and Sanctions

The Victorian Drug Court is based on therapeutic jurisprudence. Therapeutic jurisprudence principles focus on rewarding and reinforcing compliant behaviour and balancing this with the use of the coercive power of the criminal justice system to sanction non-compliant behaviour in order to maximise program retention levels and therapeutic outcomes.

In applying these principles, the Drug Court magistrate will use rewards or incentives to acknowledge a participant’s positive progress in addressing his or her drug addiction and to encourage continuing compliance with the program. To complement the encouragement of compliant behaviour, non-compliant behaviour will be addressed by the use of escalating sanctions as a tool to motivate participants to comply with the conditions of the Drug Treatment Order and thereby achieve the therapeutic goals of the Drug Court program.

Possible rewards and sanctions that may be accessed by the Drug Court magistrate include:

Rewards	Sanctions
Verbal praise/encouragement	Verbal warning
Advancement to the next Program phase	Demotion to an earlier phase
Decreased supervision	Increased supervision
Decreased court appearances	Increased court appearances
Reduced drug testing	Increased drug testing
Gift/voucher given	Imposition of a curfew
Reduced unpaid community work	Unpaid community work
Reduced periods of incarceration	Periods of incarceration
Successful Program completion	Escalating periods of incarceration
	Termination of participation in the Program

The Drug Court magistrate also has the power to impose the custodial term of the Drug Treatment Order during its operation, in order to initiate a term of imprisonment in response to non-compliance. The purpose of imposing a short term of imprisonment is to maximise an offender’s compliance with the Drug Treatment Order and ultimately to retain offenders on the program. This sanction also serves to provide the participant with a further opportunity to continue on the program before cancellation and re-sentencing. The minimum period of imprisonment that a magistrate can impose in response to non-compliance is seven days.

 

Cancellations & Breach Hearings

Cancellation as a Reward

The Drug Court may cancel a Drug Treatment Order as a reward to the participant if it considers that:

• The participant has to date fully or substantially complied with the conditions attached to the order; and,
• The continuation of the order is no longer necessary to meet the purposes for which it was made.

If the Drug Court cancels the Drug Treatment Order, any orders to activate the custodial part of the order will cease to have effect.

Application to Cancel

The Drug Court Magistrate may also cancel the treatment and supervision part of the Drug Treatment Order if satisfied on the balance of probabilities that:

• Before the order was made, the offender's circumstances were not accurately presented to either the Drug Court or the author of the drug treatment assessment report;
• The offender will not be able to comply with a certain condition attached to the order because the circumstances of the offender have materially changed since the order was made;
• The offender is no longer willing to comply with one or more conditions attached to the order; or,
• The continuation of the treatment and supervision part of the order is not likely to achieve one or more of the purposes for which the order was made.

The Drug Court may initiate cancellation of a DTO or an application may be submitted by any of the following people:

• The offender;
• The informant or police prosecutor; or,
• A prescribed person including the case manager.

If the Drug Court Magistrate cancels the treatment and supervision part of the order they will then take one of the following actions:

• Make an order activating some or all of the custodial part of the Drug Treatment Order; or,
• Cancel the custodial part of the order and re-sentence the offender.

Application to Vary

Once an Order is imposed, an application may be made to vary the treatment and supervision components of the DTO. The variation may be initiated by the Drug Court upon application by one of the following people:

• The offender;
• The informant or police prosecutor; or,
• A prescribed person who may include the case manager

The Drug Court Magistrate will approve the variation to an Order if it is considered appropriate to do so, based on its assessment of the offender’s progress in the Program. A Drug Treatment Order may be varied in one or more of the following ways:

• Addition or removal of one or more program conditions; or
• Varying one or more of the core conditions including the frequency of treatment, the degree of supervision, the frequency of drug and alcohol testing and the type or frequency of vocational, educational, employment or other programs that the offender must attend.

The offender must sign a new Drug Treatment Order each time the order is varied to consent to the variations.

Breach Hearing

The purpose of a Breach Hearing is to terminate a participant’s position in the Drug Court Program. A Breach Hearing will be held when it is believed that the participant should be terminated from the Program based on any non-compliance issues raised at the Review Hearings. This could relate to any type of non-compliance including inappropriate behaviour whilst attending a Program, continuing drug use or further offending. The Hearing will be listed four weeks in advance to allow for reports to be prepared outlining the issues relating to non-compliance. During this time, the participant will continue to attend the weekly reviews until the Breach Hearing occurs. The police prosecutor and legal representative will resume traditional roles at the Breach Hearing. If the hearing is contested the participant may be called and cross examined.

The Drug Court Magistrate will preside over all Breach Hearings and may decide on one of two outcomes for the participant:

• If the Drug Court Magistrate decides to continue the participant on the Program, the participant will resume their treatment, drug testing and court appearances.\
• If the Drug Court Magistrate decides to terminate the participant from the program the Drug Court Magistrate will cancel the Drug Treatment Order and re-sentence the participant.