Specialized Drug Court Case Study

Relatively recently in history the development of specialized, or problem-oriented, courts have assumed a predominate role in multiple areas. Three of the major ones discussed here include drug, mental health, and domestic violence courts. In 1996, the American Bar Association provided their interpretation of specialization, stating:

Traditionally, specialization refers to a specialized subject matter combined with subject matter expertise. With reference to courts, specialization usually signifies that a court has limited and frequently exclusive, jurisdiction in one or more specific fields of the law. Specialized courts are typically defined as tribunals of narrowly focused jurisdiction to which all cases that fall within that jurisdiction

Specialized Domestic Violence Courts (women & Criminal justice) (Coulter, Alexander, Harrison, 2008)(Coulter et al., 2008)

While results from drug courts vary, many report a reduction in recidivism rates, drug abuse, judicial and probation caseloads as well as a reduction in cost (Turner et al., 2002; Goldkamp, White & Robinson, 2001). On the basis of the special- ized drug court model, specialized domestic violence courts builds from two legal philosophies of restorative justice and therapeutic jurispru- dence, assessing the positive and negative effects of the legal system on the social and psychological functioning of individuals and reflects a commitment to providing comprehensive services (Tsai,

Evidence shows orga- nizational and attitudinal weaknesses in traditional courts in regard to domestic violence cases, which affects victims’ experiences throughout the court process. Attitudes of court personnel, such as victim blaming (Hart, 1993) can reflect biases, thus adversely affecting victims’ cases (Hartman & Belknap, 2003; Erez & Belknap, 1998). Due to a lack of uniform understanding about the dynamics of domestic violence, tradi- tional courts tend to minimize the criminal nature of domestic violence cases (Ptacek, 1999). What could be potentially more dangerous is that court personnel underestimate the severity of their biases and their re- sulting impact on the judicial process (Erez & Belknap, 1998; Hart,