along with an actively involved judge who oversee the drug court participants’ progress through treatment and recovery. The goal of Drug Court is to reduce recidivism or repeated criminal activity among those struggling with substance abuse issues by providing them access to evidence-based treatments, rather than incarceration. The effectiveness of drug courts has been studied extensively since their inception in 1989. Studies have consistently shown that drug courts are associated with reductions in recidivism compared to traditional methods of criminal justice processing for similar offenses (Lowenkamp & Latessa, 2004; Marlowe et al., 2006; Wilson et al., 2005). For example, a meta-analysis by Lowenkamp and Latessa (2004) concluded that drug courts reduced reincarceration rates by an average of 16%. Furthermore, drug court participation has been shown to produce cost savings in comparison to traditional judicial processing due to decreases in reoffending. A study conducted in Florida found that every dollar spent on a participant’s involvement in a Drug Court program resulted in $2.21 less being spent on costly jail time (Umbreit et al., 2002). In addition to reducing recidivism rates and saving money, research also indicates that drug court participants show improvements in other areas such as self-reported levels of anxiety and depression (Marlowe et al., 2006), quality of life measures (Volpicelli et al., 2003), family functioning (Stinchcomb & Anglin, 2009), employment status (Wilson et al., 2005) and overall level of social functioning such as increased positive contacts with friends and family members outside the courtroom setting(Berman & Knapp 2001). Overall it can be seen from this research that Drug Courts offer significant benefits for those going through them which include improved outcomes as well as potentially reduced costs which benefit taxpayers indirectly. This data makes clear that further research into the effectiveness of these programs should be conducted so they can continue making important contributions towards improving our society's response towards helping those suffering from addiction recover while at the same time protecting public safety