Offenders, their families and their victims are being "screwed over" by a legal system that's not addressing the root of the problem, says Orana Law Society president Andrew Boog.
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Mr Boog has spent the best part of a decade advocating for a drug court in Dubbo. He said it continued to be "top priority" in 2020.
"I don't plan to give up yet because it is needed," Mr Boog said.
"It's such a sensible thing. It's been shown to work. Drug courts have worked, rehabilitation centres have worked. Why do we persist in funding things that don't work and not funding what does work?"
NSW Attorney General Mark Speakman was asked if a drug court was needed in Dubbo or western NSW and if the NSW government was going to give any funding towards the court.
He was also asked if a drug court would benefit the community or if he was concerned about the level of crimes committed by offenders on drugs.
READ MORE: Here's how the NSW Drug Court program works
In response, the Daily Liberal was emailed two lines about drug courts.
"NSW Drug Courts are able to effectively address the causes of drug-related offending, assisting offenders who are drug dependent with rehabilitation," it said.
"The NSW government continually considers court resourcing, including possible regional expansion of the Drug Court program."
A question was also asked about the recent Special Commission into the Drug Ice, which visited Dubbo. The response?
"The government will provide an initial response to the ice inquiry and release it publicly in the near future."
The first drug court was established in Parramatta in 1998. Since then, it has only been expanded twice. In 2011 another was established in the Hunter. Two year later it was expanded to 2013.
In the past seven years, no more drug courts have been opened.
The three in NSW are at capacity.
But Mr Boog remains hopeful Dubbo will eventually get its wish. Albeit, in "due course".
"The very frustrating part is that in the meantime, lives of people - that is offenders, their family and victims - are all being screwed over because we can't get into gear, we can't say 'let's deal with the problem'," he said.
"Their lives are being trashed left, right and centre."
Instead, Mr Boog says money is being blown on things that don't work.
"It's a fanciful illustration but it's a bit like saying, for example, there's some really dangerous bends in the road and people are losing their lives every week travelling along that road, we'll do a letterbox drop. Oh, that didn't work, let's do a bigger letterbox drop. Actually, we'll do a door-to-door campaign," he said.
"Stop it, fix the road. It's that black and white."
Drug courts are designed to deal with non-violent offenders with drug addictions. They must plead guilty to their offence and be willing to join the Drug Court Program.
Mr Boog said his initial benevolent explanations for why Dubbo us yet to be on the list for a drug court are fading away.
"The only explanation I'm left with is that they don't want it. They don't want to divert the money, it's in the too hard basket, they can't be bothered," he said.
"Part of my taking that view is because the government hasn't told us why they won't. If they came out and said 'there is a study that has been produced by the university of whatever that shows... then we would take stock and look again. But that hasn't happened. There's just silence."
A drug court will benefit more than just the offenders.
"For drug offenders, they have a better opportunity to rehabilitate. That means the rate of repeat offending will reduce," Mr Boog said.
"For their families, they might end up with a productive family member rather than someone who just causes them great heartache and cost.
"For victims of crime, well if there's less crime, there's less victims.
"It means our prisons don't need to keep having extensions built on, so there's saving there. It means police can be deployed more effectively, rather than being stretched too thin. It means we can hire less prison guards, because there are less prisoners, and we can spend that money instead on things like teachers and nurses - rather useful people to have."
If he's wrong, Mr Boog said he would be happy to hear it.
"I've never claimed to know it all. But would someone please step up and tell me which bit's wrong? And if it isn't wrong, why aren't we addressing it? Why are we just faffing about?"