Essay On Forced Drug Testing

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Running head: FORCED DRUG TESTING Forced Drug Testing Tanya Myers University of Phoenix Criminal Court Systems CJA373 Jennifer Layton October 26, 2009 Forced Drug Testing The argument regarding whether or not someone who is charged with a crime should be forced to submit to a drug test before they are released from jail is one of the longest debates. There are some who feel that if the suspect is entered into a drug treatment program it will ensure that they will be able to break the drug habit and they will show up for their court date. Many feel this forced drug testing is an important addition to our judicial system. However, then there are those who believe that is a serious violation of our privacy and confidentiality rights. They have argued that pretrial drug testing goes against the Fourth Amendment; which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Also that taking a pretrial drug test is an unreasonable search. After a suspect is arrested, the decision to set bail is made by the judge. In cases of repeat offenders, there is still the possibility that they will flee. And there is still the thought that the suspect may commit a crime while free. President Bill Clinton in 1995…show more content…
Second, monitoring drug use during the pretrial periods, coupled with sanctions, will reduce the risk of pretrial misconduct.” (Neubauer et al, 2002) However, several studies find that this method has had limited success. Requiring defendants to participate in drug testing does not reduce failure-to-appear rates (Visher 1992; Goldkamp and Jones 1992). So it is my opinion that pretrial drug-testing programs do not and can not help predict which defendants will be rearrested while out on
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