Forced Drug Testing Drug testing is a way to test individuals for the use of any drug in their body. There is a downfall of drug testing because it’s not completely accurate, considering some drugs stay in your system longer than others.
So an individual could have used a drug 1 week prior to when they got tested. But if a person isn’t suppose to use drugs at all, then it shouldn’t matter how long the drugs are in their system because they know not to use. There are ups and downs to pretrial drug testing, and in my opinion I think it is better to have pretrial drug testing then not to, and I will explain why.Drug testing is something that is needed n court systems, it is needed because certain individuals will fail to appear in court or they may commit other crimes while they are out on bail. Pretrial drug testing programs allow the courts to monitor the defendant’s use of drugs; it also helps reduce the pretrial misconduct.
Pretrial drug testing has become widespread throughout the United States. Even though they will require a defendant to do pretrial drug testing it does not necessarily reduce the number of defendants that don’t show up for court.But more people that are tested for the first time are more likely to get out of jail, then those who are repeaters. I believe that if a defendant is offered to take a drug test, they should accept because it shows they are trying to clean up their act, especially if they are a repeater. If you are a defendant that is at risk for committing a new crime or first time offender the judge can set special release conditions for you, if out on bail. This way if you don’t follow these release conditions you will have harsher punishments.
The court system also can require a defendant to receive supervised treatment with drug testing and supervised treatment without drug testing. It has shown that those of adult offenders who receive treatment that is supervised with drug testing have a higher success rate at staying out of trouble and not committing crimes, rather than to those that get supervised treatment without drug testing. Drug testing can be expensive and should only be used when defendants need it. It is valuable if it can help determine an offender’s criminal history and their ties to the ommunity. They have found testing can lead to pretrial misconduct.
When they have done studies they have found that when individuals test positive for different drugs, there rates of not showing up to court and whether they will commit more crimes. Each drug has a different affect on people like for example a positive test of cocaine showed that defendants are less likely to appear and a positive test for opiates helped predict rearrest. The only problem with drug testing is that it doesn’t show who is a heavy use and who’s a moderate user.This helps a lot in court because normally criminal activity is based up on heavy drug use. In my opinion I believe that pretrial drug testing is the best choice. It may be expensive but it really helps in determining an offenders use of drugs and if they will repeat a crime.
There are many drug treatment programs out there available to offenders and if they are required to take these drug tests it can help them stay out of trouble and not to repeat their same old mistakes.
