OAS launches workshop on drug treatment courts in the Caribbean

The Organization of American States (OAS) on Wednesday inaugurated the third and final two-day regional training workshop on the Monitoring and Evaluation of Drug Treatment Courts (DTCs) in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Participants in the workshop organized by the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the OAS, included judicial, health and drug treatment officials from Barbados, Belize, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Canada, including the Chief Justices of Belize and Barbados.

Adriel Brathwaite, Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs of Barbados, opened the workshop highlighting his country’s investment in the drug treatment court program, “to save our young people.” The Attorney General expressed his gratitude for the support from the Government of Canada and the United States to the OAS Drug Treatment Court program, while also expressing the view that the countries, including Barbados, should take responsibility for the initiative within their countries.

The OAS representative in Barbados, Francis McBarnette, noted that the training provides DTC teams in the country with an important resource, as monitoring and evaluation are crucial to the process of implementing DTCs.

The High Commissioner of Canada to Barbados and the OCES, Richard Hanley, said his country is pleased to fund this project given that DTCs help to provide an alternative to incarceration for drug-dependent abusers, and also to reduce crime, recidivism and overpopulation in prisons, which is one of the biggest problems in Barbados. “It is not only a public health issue, but also one of criminal justice.”

For his part, the Deputy Chief of Mission of the United States to Barbados, Aruna Amirthanayagam, said that his country is pleased to support the program along with Canada.

Angela Crowdy, the Assistant Executive Secretary of CICAD, stressed the importance of monitoring and evaluation, which is a priority for CICAD, in order to strengthen and expand the DTC program across the Hemisphere “generating evidence which will allow us to demonstrate, over time, that the objectives have been achieved.”

CICAD plans to complete a Manual for Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of Drug Treatment Courts by February, 2015. This will include an external evaluation of the project as a whole, so that findings can benefit the execution of future activities and related policy decisions. (OAS)