Why It Matters

Federal support for drug courts sits at the intersection of criminal justice and public health, according to a new Congressional Research Service report “Federal Support for Drug Courts: In Brief.”

Approximately 3,881 drug courts were operating in the United States in May 2025, and federal funding for drug court grants was approximately $196 million in fiscal year 2026. That support is delivered through financial assistance, federal drug courts, research, and other initiatives, with the Drug Court Discretionary Grant Program distributing competitive grants to state, local, and tribal governments.

The report cites evaluations that classify nine of 13 reviewed programs as promising and four as effective, based on evaluations from 2011 through 2022. Reported reductions in criminal-justice costs and recidivism coexist with the Drug Policy Alliance's arguments that drug courts mainly help people already likely to succeed, do not genuinely reduce costs, and can penalize people with more severe addictions.

The Big Picture

Drug courts are specialized programs that divert some nonviolent criminal defendants from traditional incarceration toward treatment-focused alternatives and primarily serve first-time, nonviolent offenders with substance-use or substance-misuse disorders.

In the deferred-prosecution model, defendants enter diversion before pleading, and successful completion can lead to prosecution being deferred or dropped. In the postadjudication model, defendants plead guilty through a plea agreement and then participate in the drug-court program, with successful completion potentially resulting in a sentence being waived or amended.

Drug courts typically use multidisciplinary teams that can include judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, social workers, and treatment professionals, and use phases that include stabilization, treatment, and reintegration.

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 originally authorized the adult treatment-court grant program under Title V, the 21st Century Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act was the program's first reauthorization, the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 was its second reauthorization, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016 amended the Drug Court Grant Program and specifically authorized DOJ grants for veterans treatment courts, and Section 14003 of the 21st Century Cures Act required DOJ to establish a pilot program for federal drug and mental-health courts.

For fiscal year 2026, the analysis reports $86 million in Department of Justice grants for adult, juvenile, and family drug courts, $32 million for veterans treatment court grants, $75 million in Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grants, $3 million in Office of National Drug Control Policy grants, and $4 million for a national center for veterans justice.

The Bottom Line

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant line was $64.91 million in fiscal year 2025 and $75 million in fiscal year 2026, according to the analysis.

A 10-year study by Finigan and colleagues reported drug-court investment costs of $1,392 less per participant than traditional criminal-justice processing, with savings exceeding $79 million from reduced recidivism over the study period. A five-year longitudinal study of 23 drug courts found that participants were significantly less likely to relapse and committed fewer criminal acts after completion than nonparticipants.

A 2022 Maryland evaluation found that adult treatment-court programs saved more than $21.4 million over two years and reduced rearrests.

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