Monday,
February 4, 2008
International
drug program for SA’s Drug Court
An
internationally-proven program designed to reduce repeat offending among serious
drug offenders is to be introduced to South Australia.
SA’s
Drug Court this week will host international drug treatment expert Dr Kenneth
Robinson’s first visit to Australia where he will run a four-day training
course for about 40 specialist workers in the field of drug offending and
rehabilitation from SA, NSW and Queensland.
Tennessee-based
Dr Robinson will lead the 4 day training course in Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT),
a program which focuses on changing thinking patterns and behaviours that
contribute to criminal behaviour.
Research
has shown MRT to be effective with offenders with drug and alcohol problems.
Dr
Robinson has published and presented numerous professional articles in the areas
of corrections and criminal justice services and is co-developer of Moral
Reconation Therapy (MRT) and Social Responsibility Training (SRT).
He
holds a Doctorate in Educational Psychology and a Masters of Science in
Psychology and has been involved in correctional programs for the past thirty
years.
MRT
uses is a 12-step approach to change how drug users and alcoholics make
decisions and judgments, and moves
them from hedonistic (pleasure vs. pain) reasoning levels to levels where
concern for social rules and others becomes important.
Research
on MRT has shown that as clients pass through the steps, moral reasoning
increases in adult drug and alcohol offenders as well as juvenile offenders.
In
South Australia, the Adelaide Magistrates Court runs a 12 month Drug Court
program for drug dependent offenders who are facing a prison sentence.
Defendants
must plead guilty and be suitable for bail to be accepted onto the program. A
number of government and non- government organisations are involved in
delivering the program, including the Department for Correctional Services, Drug
and Alcohol Services SA, Anglicare and the Aboriginal Sobriety Group.
Successful
completion of the program is taken into consideration in sentencing.
A
total of 541 people have been accepted into the Drug Court between May 2000 and
30 June 2007, and 141 people have completed the program.
A
2004 study of the Drug Court’s impact on re-offending, undertaken by the
Office of Crime Statistics and Research found that the offending rate of
participants in the Drug Court reduced from 420 offences before the program to
183 post program, and the nature of offending became less serious, from property
and theft to minor traffic offences.
The
MRT training course will be held at the Stamford Plaza on North Terrace between
5 and 8 February 2008.
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