Date and time: Thursday 30 November 4.00pm - 5.30pm AEDT
Topic: Evaluation of the NSW Drug Court: Methods, Successes and Opportunities
Location: online via zoom, details will be shared just prior to the event.  
Presenters: Judge Jane Mottley AM and Dr Suzanne Poynton
Register online by: Wednesday 29 November 2023

Event Description: 

Drug Courts are specialist courts that emerged in the 1990s as a result of the failure of traditional criminal justice processes to provide long term solutions to the cycle of drug use and crime. Drug Courts aim to help people address their illicit drug dependence which has resulted in criminal offending. The NSW Drug Court is the first Drug Court to be trialled and evaluated in Australia. The Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) has undertaken multiple evaluations of the NSW Drug Court including a randomised control trial, which found that it was both cheaper than prison and more effective in reducing re-offending. The most recent evaluation of the long-term effects of the NSW Drug Court published in 2020 compared people accepted into the Drug Court with those referred to but not accepted onto the program, and found participants were significantly less likely to be reconvicted than the comparison group. The BOCSAR evaluations have played an important role in the expansion of the NSW Drug Court, which now sits in four locations: Parramatta, Toronto, Sydney and Dubbo.

In this online seminar you will hear from Judge Jane Mottley, Senior Judge of the NSW Drug Court, and Dr Suzanne Poynton, Director of Research and Evaluation at BOCSAR and co-author of the 2020 evaluation. Judge Mottley and Dr Poynton will discuss the methodology, cost, findings and impact of the evaluation of the NSW Drug Court, and reflect on the broader implications for funding decisions and policy reform.

About the Presenters

Judge Jane Mottley AM has over 30 years legal experience being admitted as a solicitor in 1989. In 2000 she was appointed as a Magistrate of the Local Court. While serving as a magistrate she sat in both Local & Children’s Courts. In 2009 she was appointed as Deputy Chief Magistrate a role she held until her resignation in 2021. While Deputy Chief Magistrate, her Honour was also appointed as part-time member of the Law Reform Commission working on Bail, Sentencing & Early Appropriate Guilty Pleas. In 2017 she was appointed as a Judge of the Drug Court of NSW and in 2021 as Senior Judge.
In leading the Drug Court she works assiduously to maintain the court as a “multi-agency partnership, involved not only in the administration of justice, but in delivering health and living outcomes that are not usually addressed through the normal processes of the justice system”.

Dr Suzanne Poynton is the Director, Research and Evaluation at the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at UNSW Faculty of Law and Justice. She has both undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications in psychology and a PhD in Social Science and Policy (Criminology) from UNSW. Suzanne has extensive research experience, with particular expertise in the use of quantitative research methodologies to evaluate policy and program delivery. She has more than 60 publications on a wide range of topics, including a recent paper on the long term effect of the NSW Drug Court on recidivism (BOCSAR Crime and Justice Bulletin 232, 2020, with Weatherburn, Yeong, Jones & Farrell).

This free event has been organised by the  NSW Regional Network of the AES. Our seminar series provides an opportunity for you to meet with AES members and others in the evaluation community and to share and learn from the experiences of fellow evaluators.

Please ensure you have access to your email address to receive the zoom details. Please also check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting. 

This Seminar will not be recorded.

Session start times

• VIC, NSW, ACT, TAS: 4.00pm

• QLD: 3.00pm

• SA: 3.30pm

• NT: 2.30pm

• WA: 1.00pm

• New Zealand: 6.00pm

For other time zones please go to https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html