Pre vs Post-Adjudication

"Most drug courts require a guilty plea as the price of admission. When guilty pleas are required before offering treatment, drug courts become little more than conviction mills. In post-adjudication courts, the defendant must plead guilty before entering drug court, and even if he or she is successful and completes the program, the conviction will never go away. In pre-adjudication courts, the defendant must plead guilty, but then, if he or she successfully completes the program there is a possibility that the plea can be withdrawn and the charge dismissed. Although procedures vary, the hoops through which participants must jump result in dismissals for relatively few defendants. Profound consequences flow from every failure."