Drug Court Case Study

In the wake of the Great Depression and World War II, funding for state psychiatric institutions began to dwindle. Yet, the National Institute of Mental Health emerged to tackle the mental health crisis in 1949. Psychiatric drug therapy, like chlorpromazine, along with new research and training for mental health providers saw that outpatient community treatment was a legit alternative to state institutionalization. Subsequently, the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963 provided federal funding for outpatient treatment programs. In essence, when America shifted to deinstitutionalization it allowed people with a serious mental illness to remain in the community. Even though outpatient treatment was beneficial, it could not maintain pace

More importantly, drug court sought to break the criminal justice cycle and ease the burdens to the criminal justice system associated with incarceration (DeMatteo et al., 2013; Fielding, Tye, Ogawa, Imam, & Long, 2002; Redlich & Han, 2014). Drug Court is an alternative to traditional criminal sanctions like incarceration and is considered a problem-solving court or diversion court (Brown, 2011; DeMatteo et al., 2013; Krebs, Lindquist, Koetse, & Lattimore, 2007). Drug court is a problem-solving court that believes defendants suffer from an illness or psychosocial dysfunction and the illness or dysfunction increases his or her chance to engage in criminal behavior. By attempting to solve the root problems of criminal behavior, problem-solving courts improve the defendant’s health and ability to reintegrate into society as well as the public’s health and safety (Brown, 2011). Diversion courts attempt to intervene prior to a defendant entering a plea deal or trial, hence, these courts divert defendants from the traditional criminal justice process (DeMatteo et al.,

Fulkerson (2009) describes therapeutic justice as “the use of social science to study the extent to which a legal rule or practice promotes the psychological and physical well-being of the people it affects” (p. 256). Whereas retribution seeks to punish an offender, therapeutic justice seeks to rehabilitate, provide treatment, and restore the offender “to a law abiding way of life,” that requires a new thought process and attitude (Palermo, 2010, p. 214). The therapeutic justice concept was developed in hopes it would create a more equitable judicial system. Therapeutic justice focuses on the needs and interest of clients rather then rhetoric or rights of clients (Palermo,