Sidebar to the article Problem-Solving Courts: Fighting Crime by Treating the Offender by Paul A. Haskins, published in NIJ Journal issue no. 281.
A recurring theme in drug court research, including the Multnomah County and Multisite Adult Drug Court Evaluation studies, has been the critical role of the judge. Drug court procedures are designed to enable judges and participants to interact in a cooperative, largely nonadversarial setting that encourages positive treatment outcomes. As one scholar surveying relevant research observed:[1]
These courts get good results in large part because participants have positive perceptions about them. Faith in the court makes people more likely to follow treatment plans and stay away from trouble in the future. In interviews, specialty court participants report feeling that they have a voice in the treatment process and are treated with dignity and respect. … Offenders who take part in specialty court programs frequently rate interactions with judges as one of the more important and positive aspects of their experience.
It has long been recognized, however, that the procedural freedom enabling a drug court judge to act as an ally of the defendant in a nonadversarial setting comes at some risk of judicial inconsistency or impairment of defendants’ rights. A report prepared by an American University team, based on findings from a national focus group of problem-solving court (PSC) administrators and judges, observed:[2]
Another challenge from the traditional court perspective was the practice [in PSCs] of suspending the adversarial process and having defendants “give up their rights to the traditional process in order for the court to help them.” The adversarial process was described in this group not as contentious, but rather as the taking of differing positions to ensure that the situation of the defendant was understood more fully. The participants agreed that the adversarial process could have a detrimental [effect], where the sides could become overly contentious and in turn slow or prevent the resolution of a case. In spite of this concern, the participants acknowledged that the original principle behind the adversarial process was still a good one and should not be lightly put aside.
With that inherent institutional tension in mind, a pillar of the drug court model is preservation of core due process principles. The seven program design features developed by NIJ and the Bureau of Justice Assistance state that with respect to procedural and distributive justice, “The basic concerns are fair process and equitable outcomes.”[3]
About This Article
This article was published as part of NIJ Journal issue number 281, published October 2019, as a sidebar to the article Problem-Solving Courts: Fighting Crime by Treating the Offender, by Paul A. Haskins.