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NCSC
Initiative Provides Technical Assistance, Education on
Drug Courts
Dawn Marie Rubio
In October 2002, the Bureau of
Justice Assistance (Drug Court Training and Technical
Assistance Program) awarded the National Center for
State Courts (NCSC) federal dollars to lead and conduct
the National Drug Court Training and Technical
Assistance Initiative: Statewide Technical
Assistance and Evaluation Training. Through this
initiative, NCSC has made a significant contribution to
advancing the development and institutionalization of
drug courts across the nation.
Statewide
Technical Assistance Initiative
The National Center for State Courts provides statewide
technical assistance services to state administrative
offices of courts and state alcohol and drug agencies,
including (1) on-site technical assistance, (2) off-site
technical assistance (i.e., facilitating peer-to-peer
consultation via e-mail and conference calls), and (3) a
series of publications to further integrate drug courts
into the mainstream of court operations.
The primary purpose of
the statewide technical assistance is to provide direct
aid and information to the state agencies that (1)
enhances the leadership of the statewide drug court
effort, (2) improves coordination and collaboration
among the drug court agencies, and (3) increases the
likelihood for the institutionalization of drug courts
into the mainstream of court operations.
NCSC has provided
large-scale technical assistance services to Wyoming,
Michigan, New Jersey, Tennessee, Maryland, Vermont,
Minnesota, and Missouri. Technical assistance
services have focused on development of statewide
performance measures and evaluation design; MIS
development (including evaluation and performance
measurement components and treatment case management);
development of a standardized statewide drug court data
dictionary; generation and enhancement of stakeholder
support for statewide drug court efforts; development of
effective drug court policy; development of statewide
treatment standards; and strategic planning for
long-term statewide funding of drug courts.
Additionally, NCSC is
publishing a series of three bulletins documenting the
efforts of the Statewide Technical Assistance
Initiative. The first Statewide Technical
Assistance Bulletin, Needs Assessment Survey Results:
Assessing the Statewide Needs of Drug Courts, was
published in October 2003. This bulletin discusses
the results of a nationwide survey of state-level drug
court agencies and the areas of need for technical
assistance. (Click here to read the bulletin.) The
second bulletin will focus on developing statewide
performance measures for drug courts and should be
released in July 2004.
Drug Court
Evaluation Training Initiative
The purpose of Drug Court Evaluation Training Workshops
is to assist operating drug courts in designing,
planning, and implementing an evaluation of the
operation and effectiveness of their programs.
Each of the Evaluation Training Workshops is interactive
in nature and contains three tracks so that each drug
court team can select the curriculum that is most
closely linked to their court's current evaluation
needs. The tracks focus on three areas of evaluation:
Track A
General overview of drug court evaluation concepts and
strategies
Track B Conducting an internal
drug court evaluation/monitoring the drug court
Track C Using an external drug
court evaluator
The Evaluation Training
Curriculum has been tested and presented in five
workshops for over 300 judges, drug court coordinators,
evaluators, probation officers, and other drug court
professionals in Savannah, Ga.; Kansas City, Mo.;
Louisville, Ky.; San Francisco; and Detroit. The
sixth and final workshop will be held in Minneapolis in
July 2004.
NCSC thanks the
Bureau of Justice Assistance for its financial support
of the National Drug Court Training and Technical
Assistance Initiative: Statewide Technical
Assistance and Evaluation Training. For additional
information regarding this initiative, please contact
Dawn Marie Rubio, J.D., at drubio@ncsc.dni.us,
or Richard Van Duizend, J.D., at rvanduizend@ncsc.dni.us.
Dawn
Marie Rubio is a Senior Management Consultant with the
National Center for State Courts' Court Consulting
Services in Denver. She is an attorney with
expertise in family law, juvenile dependency,
child welfare, domestic relations, domestic violence,
drug courts, problem-solving courts, and court
programs.
Problem-Solving
Courts: A Growing U.S. Export
James Cooper
As the trade deficit continues to balloon, the United
States is exporting one product with great success:
judicial problem-solving mechanisms. Judges from
around the United States are traveling the world to
educate fellow jurists on innovations that bring
speedier resolutions and to share methods for
administering more transparent justice.
This is an
ideal time for members of our judiciary to share their
successes with their colleagues globally. Much of
the developing world is moving away from inquisitorial
criminal procedures and toward more adversarial or
accusatory models. Not only are oral advocacy
skills at a premium, but judges are being asked to
redefine their roles and assume new responsibilities to
assist in the transition to greater transparent and
participatory judicial proceedings. Help is on its
way.
A few years ago, Hon. Irma Gonzalez, a U.S. District
Court judge, went to Ecuador to tour the Andean nation
and educate jurists about mediation and diversion
programs. As the small country converts to the
adversarial system in its criminal procedure, new forms
of dispute resolution are required. Judge
Gonzalez, at the invitation of the U.S. Embassy in
Quito, provided much-needed legal technologies to judges
looking to find more efficient ways to clear up their
swelling caseloads.
Working with funding from the Organization of American
States, Hon. Michael Town, a Hawaii Criminal Court judge
based in Honolulu, trained a group of Latin American
judges and lawyers in Costa Rica in skills to promote
new oral trials. While in the capital, San Jose,
he met with a group of judges to talk about compassion
fatigue and the role that judges can play as coaches.
This role for judges has been increasingly recognized by
the federal and state judiciaries in the last decade.
Judge Town continues to tour internationally to talk to
his fellow jurists about their roles as problem solvers
rather than mere adjudicators of disputes.
Last month, Hon. James Stiven, a U.S. magistrate judge
in San Diego, met with Chilean lawyers and judges in
Santiago and trained them on the methods of using
constitutional law to solve disputes. Teaching in
a postgraduate program that is offered by a U.S. law
school, a German law school, and a Chilean law school,
Judge Stiven helped promote the active role that the
judiciary makes in consolidating democratic governance.
This coming August, Hon. Laura Safer Espinoza of the New
York Supreme Court will be working with the U.S. Embassy
in Chile to facilitate a workshop of national judicial
and civic leaders with a view to instituting drug
treatment court pilot programs. Based on the
success of drug treatment diversion programs, one of
which Judge Safer Espinoza administers in the Bronx,
pilot programs are being rolled out around the
hemisphere. This initiative is a welcome
alternative to the mixed results that the war on drugs
has produced over the last 20 years.
In a post 9-11 world in which U.S. foreign policy has
been defined by the war on terrorism and military
action, the export of American know-how concerning
problem-solving courts is a refreshing reminder that the
United States can promote judicial tools that address
societal ills and provide more efficient and better
access to justice. While free and fair elections
are a start, nothing can promote democracy like the rule
of law and innovations that empower the judiciary to
solve the problems that plague society.
James
Cooper is Assistant Dean, Mission Development, of
California Western School of Law in San Diego, which
educates creative problem solvers. He directs
Proyecto ACCESO, a Pan-American judicial reform and
legal skills training program.
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