Barbados can save thousands of dollars as a result of the introduction of a drug treatment court.
Justice Kofi Barnes, chairman of the Association of Drug Treatment Courts and also chair of the International Association of Drug Treatment Courts, said that according to the court model – adopted by many countries, including Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago – research had proven that for every one dollar invested in a Drug Treatment Court, taxpayers saved ten dollars.
Barnes, a justice in the Canadian Ontario Court, was speaking yesterday at the Drug Treatment Court Training Workshop, at the Supreme Court Complex, Whitepark Road, Bridgetown.
Barnes said research also showed that courts that took their time to engage in ongoing training were five times more effective than those that did not.
“Drug treatment courts will not solve all the world’s problems. But when you have seen a person who has been found to be down and out and when you have seen a person who has lost everything, a person who has been shunned by the community and if you observe them to change their lives and to become successful members of society, you cannot help but be changed. You cannot help but believe,” he said. (AH)
