Drug Treatment Courts

Alternative courts emerged to address a variety of criminal behaviors to both reduce the number of low-priority offenders entering the criminal justice system and produce recidivism rates among habitual offenders. These courts include drug courts, DUI courts, mental health courts and others to address specific crimes types. These courts were initially implemented in Miami, Florida, in 1989 to address the sheer volume of non-violent drug offenders entering the criminal justice system (see McColl, 1996). Drug treatment courts address alternative sanctioning needs and offer preventive efforts in a given community with alternative solutions to traditional incarceration. By the mid-1990s there had been little evaluative research or theoretical basis

Several paradigms of law and choice criminal justice and criminological theories have been implemented to promote the creation of drug treatment courts and validate their continued use. Of interest to this theory are the following two legal theories and one criminology theory which coincide with the goals of effective drug treatment court. The legal theories of “therapeutic justice” and “community justice” which emerged in the late 1980s and 1990s in response to the flood of offenders from the war on crime. Additional support from criminological theory comes from Hirschi’s Social Control Theory which emphasize strong social bonds of an individual reduces their propensity to commit criminal

The caveat is if an offender refuses or fails, to cooperate with the terms and conditions of participation the charges are processed in the traditional court, resulting in incarceration. The increased involvement of the court work-group allows each offender to receive a personalized diversion plan to address the various issues contributing to their criminal behavior. Drug treatment courts’ structures and their participant requirements can vary, with evaluations of success measured as “time to fail” or recidivating after successful completion (Hora et al,