“We do not want necessarily to jail our juveniles and to make this a jailhouse nation, we want to have alternatives, we want to have diversionary measures and I see this Drug Treatment Court as an aspect of that.”
Those were the sentiments shared by Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan on Wednesday as a two-day workshop kicked off at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre in Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown for stakeholders who will be involved in the new arm of the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.

The court has come at a time when statistics have proven that there has been an increased number of drug offenders in the court system. The new system will provide rehabilitative services to offenders rather than have them incarcerated.
Ramjattan noted that the idea of a Drug Treatment Court was first spoken of 30 years ago in the United States and has proven to be a successful measure as too many people are being imprisoned because of the said matter.
He said, “For very many offenders in relation to matters to drugs, jail is not the best place but treatment and that is why it has kicked off since then to a number of countries that have implemented the Drug Treatment Court to the extent that it is saving a generation”.
