The Palm Beach County Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) was recently awarded a two-year Adult Drug Court Discretionary Grant in the amount of $200,000 to focus on the prescription drug abuse pandemic in the county. This grant will permit the existing Adult Drug Court, which has been successfully operating since 2000, to focus specifically on prescription drug abuse by increasing the number of participants in the program and offering them specialized treatment.
The Palm Beach County Drug Court is a pretrial program that combines substance abuse treatment and social services into the criminal justice system. Circuit Court Judge Krista Marx presides over regularly scheduled court hearings at the Criminal Justice Complex in West Palm Beach. Drug Court allows nonviolent offenders to be released from jail and placed into outpatient treatment thus enabling them to break the cycle of addition, obtain or maintain employment in order to take care of their children and families, end their drug-related criminal activities and ultimately resolve their criminal charges without a conviction. By decreasing the number of incarcerated nonviolent offenders, Drug Court frees jail space for more serious offenders while providing a cost savings to taxpayers. To date, Palm Beach County Adult Drug Court has graduated 1,178 participants and has a recidivism rate of 12 percent (based on the re-arrest of all graduates for felonies and misdemeanors) which computes to a success rate of 88 percent for Drug Court graduates.
For more information about the Palm Beach County Criminal Justice Commission and the many projects that are supported by CJC funding, contact (561) 355-4943.
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