He has a court date. He knows he ain't did what he's supposed to do, but he knows what he needs to do, which is to show up for his court date. Any other time he knows he's screwed up, he's not going to come to court. Our clients do that because they get to a point of not viewing the court as a punitive situation for them. Drug court is not punitive.
Drug court is helpful.
We take irresponsible, unpredictable people and attempt to turn them into responsible and predictable people who can continue to live in this society. That's all we're doing. Ten miles away, at the courthouse in Clayton, the folks who run the St. Louis County drug court are trying to do the same thing. But they haven't reached nearly as many people as the city, which has more than 300 offenders enrolled in drug court after three years. All rights reserved.