(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Chief Justice of Jamaica, the Honourable Zaila McCalla has reported successes in the two Drug Treatment Courts (DTCs) in Kingston and St James. However, she bemoaned the lack of resources necessary to build capacity in those courts.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Opening Ceremony of a four-day high-level Drug Treatment Court workshop, in Montego Bay, Jamaica, the Chief Justice told her audience of judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, treatment providers, and probation officers from the United States, Canada, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago that more than two-hundred persons had graduated from the drug treatment programme in both parishes and had demonstrated ‘monumental changes’ in their lifestyle.

This, she said, was impressive and had served to convince her that this alternative to imprisonment of drug dependent offenders was working.

However, she emphasized that substantial resources – human, financial and otherwise – were critical to sustaining those courts and reiterated her call for the establishment of more DTCs in her country and for more resources to strengthen the existing ones.

“The time has come for Drug Treatment Courts to be within the reach of all eligible persons within the country,” she said, but hastened to explain that capacity building through training was necessary to accomplish this.

The training workshop in Montego Bay, titled How to establish and consolidate Drug Treatment Courts in the Caribbean, a Team Effort, is a joint initiative of the Caribbean Community, the Organization of the American States (OAS), through the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the Secretariat for Multidimensional Security, the Governments of Canada and Jamaica and the European Union, through the 9th European Development Fund.

Its broad aim is to help curb substance abuse and its social consequences in the Caribbean, by developing treatment programs for drug dependent offenders as an alternative to imprisonment.

Enumerating the benefits of the DTCs, Chief Justice Zaila McCalla asserted that they did not only provide a second chance for addicts who were determined to change their lifestyle but served to assist in the fight to reduce crime and violence and to reduce the backlog of cases in the courts.

Jamaica has been described by International Development Partners as the leading and exemplary Member State in the provision of treatment and rehabilitation programmes for drug dependent offenders in the Community.

According to the Minister of Justice, Senator the Honourable Dorothy Lightbourne, whose message was read at the Opening Ceremony, Jamaica through the passing of the Drug Court Treatment and Rehabilitation Act in 2001 was able to set up two DTCs and had since been piloting a treatment and rehabilitation programme to complement the work of DTCs. She expressed hope that this programme would be moved out of its pilot phase very soon.

Meanwhile, High Court Judge, Justice Glen Brown, one of the founders of the DTCs in Jamaica, stressed the need for DTCs to be introduced in the remaining 12 parishes, and appealed to the Government of Jamaica to invest more resources into this alternative yet complementary treatment program. He also called on International Development Partners to support an International conference on DTCs.

Deputy Chairman of the National Council for Drug Abuse, Mr Steve Ashley weighed in on the call for more resources and asserted that what was needed was “an educated society to understand that the substance abusers in most cases are not entirely responsible for their actions and therefore need sensitive care designed to assuage the destructive impulses generated by the drug they misuse.”

He expressed hope that at the end of the workshop, there would be “a full understanding of the importance of the drug court not only as a social tool to enhance civility but also an economic tool that could support national development goals positively.”

Contact:  piu@caricom.org