A New South Wales solicitor who represents some of the region's most drug-dependent criminals says the opening of a drug court in Dubbo will be a step toward improving "postcode justice".
Legal Aid solicitor in charge at Dubbo, Bill Dickens has been advocating for a drug court model for the region since 2010.
The specialist court is the fourth of its type to open in NSW, joining those currently in Sydney CBD, Parramatta, and Toronto in the Hunter region as a pathway for offender reform.
By breaking the cycle of drug dependency and criminal activity, the use of drug courts has shown to reduce short-term and long-term re-offending by about 17 per cent.
The intervention-style program is pivotal to a multi-agency effort to tackle the ice epidemic that is plaguing many regional communities across the state.
Mr Dickens was one of many community members and service providers at the Monday opening of the first NSW Drug Court west of the Blue Mountains.
"The commission of crime is very much drug related, so really we need more sensible solutions, and we also need to have facilities in the country that are available to people in the city," he said.
The drug court program has been operating in NSW since 1999.
A long time coming
Former senior judge of the NSW Drug Court, Roger Dive, said he has spent nearly 17 years advocating an expansion of the program to Dubbo.
"I'd been here as a children's court magistrate and I knew Dubbo was big enough to have the resources for the practitioners and health services to be able to actually provide some good work here," he said.
An expansion of the program to Dubbo has been a recommendation made in numerous investigations, including the 2018 inquiry into drug rehabilitation services in regional, remote and rural areas, as well as the 2020 inquiry into the drug ice.
In 2021, the NSW government announced Dubbo would be home to the drug court, committing $27.9 million over four years.
Mr Dickens said the drug court was part of a strategy to support the individuals, families and communities impacted by drugs.
"We also have a youth Koori court starting here in a few weeks as well. They're different approaches, evidence based approaches," he said.
"They're things that work in addressing crime, in making people productive members of the community, and work in saving families and saving people's lives."
If successful in Dubbo, Mr Dickens hopes a similar program can be extended further west.
"We'll need some fairly creative solutions to do that, but I hope that in the future this program will be available to communities such as Walgett, Coonamble, Bourke and other places," he said.
"That's going to require some fairly creative thinking, but hopefully in the future it can be done."
An intensive program
The drug court in Dubbo will host up to 80 drug-dependent adults facing imprisonment who have pleaded guilty to their charges and live in the Dubbo local government area.
Far from being a soft option, the drug court is a type of suspended sentence with those failing the intensive program likely to face jail.
The drug court is a joint justice and health response to drug-related offending.
The judge works alongside other parties such as the Director of Public Prosecutions, Legal Aid, police, social support and health providers over 12 months.
As part of the program, participants must submit to regular drug testing and court appearances.
In 2020, an Upper House report into First Nations deaths in custody recommended an expansion of drug courts in regional areas to help break the cycle of drug dependency and crime.
