Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court

The Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court (AODTC) is a specialist court in New Zealand which targets criminal offending driven by alcohol and drug addiction. There are three such specialised courts, in Auckland, Waitākere and Hamilton. Their purpose is to reduce the use of imprisonment by offering offenders with addictions the opportunity to attend treatment in the community. To be admitted to the AODTC, defendants have to be formally assessed as substance dependent (i.e. they have an addiction) by a qualified clinician, be facing a prison sentence of up to three years, and plead guilty.

The treatment programme takes up to 18 months. Participants are drug tested up to twice a week and subject to regular judicial monitoring of their progress. If the defendant successfully completes the programme, on graduation they are sentenced to Intensive Supervision in the community, instead of to prison. This enables additional support and drug testing to be provided for up to another two years.

The Auckland and Waitakere courts were established as a pilot programme in 2012. The pilot was evaluated extensively over the next five years, and the Ministry of Justice subsequently concluded it reduced reoffending of graduates by 86%.

In 2017, Andrew Little who became Minister of Justice, said drug courts would be “rolled out across New Zealand in 2018”. The AODTC was made permanent in 2019, and in 2021, a new drug court was established in Hamilton. Despite the remarkable success of the AODTC at reducing reoffending, no further funding has been allocated in subsequent Budgets to roll drug courts out nationwide.