The Drug Court Revolution

...Don't you...

...Instead of an explosion in the prison population, then, we would have an explosion in the patient population...

...A yes response means—categorical-ly—that "you are in the late stage of addiction...

...The most extensive independent evaluation of the nation's drug courts—conducted by the General Accounting Office in 1997—concluded that current evidence "did not firmly establish whether drug court programs were successful in reducing drug relapse and offender recidivism...

...Offenders are now patients...

...In addition to getting his drug charge dropped or reduced, each of the graduates receives a certificate of achievement and a copy of Iyanla Vanzant's 1993 book Acts of Faith: Daily Meditations for People of Color...

...Young has suffered a setback this month...

...Some end up in in-patient treatment centers...

...There is a hand-painted sign that reads: "We will involve you in a process of self-evaluation and positive productive change, while also responding to your individual needs and concerns...

...Says Judge Canan: "My personal morals may or may not be meaningful to someone else...

...Most of the graduates make speeches—very heartfelt, gracious testimonials...

...Moreover, the best drug courts process cases quickly, which, as Wilson argues, links crime and punishment in the defendant's mind...

...More important, offenders must remain drug-free to "graduate...

...Williams, a transvestite dressed in checkered hot pants with matching pocketbook, gave spirited testimony...

...Now there are almost 400, with hundreds more in the planning stages, backed by over $100 million in federal seed money...

...Likewise, the drug court story is heroic, inspirational, a grand social drama with progressive judges and therapists as the protagonists...

...Treatment counselors make detailed presentations of the "client's" progress—Mr...

...a drug court office in the Department of Justice...

...The people we are honoring here today have gained some respect for the law and for themselves...

...The plastic chairs in the therapy rooms are in a perfect circle...

...This is, they say, a new beginning...

...most courts did not keep follow-up data on the rate at which "clients" relapsed or were rearrested...

...But the rise of therapeutic jurisprudence raises sobering questions about the future of American criminal justice: Is the purpose of courts to "meet the individual needs" of defendants, as the drug court literature routinely assumes...

...We can't do that...

...In response, "Treatment Diversion" programs sprang up across the country, bolstered by social science claims that the root cause of drug use is economic deprivation and medical science claims that drug addiction is a physiological problem largely beyond individual control...

...He answers hundreds of multiple-choice questions about his childhood problems, family problems, drug use, and sexual behavior...

...As DiIulio recently wrote, two million prisoners, roughly a quarter of them drug-only offenders, are enough...

...You've got to put your mind to it...

...What's more, there is no question that the present system—the revolving door of drugs and crime—is in need of reform...

...No one doubts that the drug court movement will expand, even though its effectiveness remains in serious question...

...We try to build selfesteem...

...Advocates claim that drug courts are a "miracle," a "new reality," "our last, best hope...

...When they call the present system "adversarial" they mean to disparage it, and they mock as antiquated the idea that a judge should be a "dispassionate, disinterested magistrate...

...Many clients are then referred to other psychiatrists and psychologists for further evaluation...

...and most studies made no comparison between drug court participants and nonparticipants...

...We believe you can fly...

...Which is exactly the way the drug court "professionals" (as the lawyers, judges, and counselors who run the nation's drug courts call themselves) have designed it to be...

...The principles that underlie this effort, however, are important...

...The judge plays the "role of confessor, taskmaster, cheerleader, and mentor," says Jeffrey Tauber, a former judge from Oakland, Calif., now president of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals...

...Five years ago there were only 12 drug courts nationwide...

...Such relapses are, according to the therapists, part of the recovery...

...90 percent of drug tests have been clean...

...I'm talking in terms of treatment, love, and care," says Judge Robert Fogan...

...The Washington, D.C., Drug Court tells its clients that lifelong therapy is a "part of healthy living...

...If I were to attempt to dictate my values on someone I'd be doing them a disservice...

...There is no doubt something very pragmatic and sensible about trying to get addicts off drugs, which explains why many prominent conservatives—James Q. Wilson, John J. DiIulio Jr., Jeb Bush, Rudolph Giuliani—have had nice things to say about drug courts...

...The GAO report cited three major problems with the available studies: Most drug court programs were still in their first or second year of operation...

...and the recidivism rate for drug court graduates is only 4 percent, compared to "well over 50 percent" of defendants who go through the "traditional adjudication process...

...The "emotional appeal" and "tears of joy" make journalists, politicians, and lawyers into "immediate converts...

...Where appropriate, the courts diverted offenders into treatment programs, but the purpose of the criminal justice system—namely, to mete out impartial justice under the law and punish the guilty—was maintained...

...prosecutors, defense attorneys, therapists, and judges are all part of the "treatment team...

...Drug courts are the cutting edge of therapeutic jurisprudence, the latest panacea in the ongoing war against drugs...

...But treatment and justice remained distinct...

...In most jurisdictions, participation in drug court is voluntary...

...The largest and most important treatment organization was TASC— Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime—formed in 1972 with the explicit purpose of "linking treatment and the judicial process...

...Should judges really play the role of "confessor, cheerleader, and mentor" to the accused who come before them...

...The Washington Drug Court has four phases of treatment: "Orientation and Assessment," "Stabilization and Cognitive Restructuring," "Transition," and "Maintenance...

...therapeutic age...

...The evidence so far—from the entrenched moral relativism of the therapists to the transformation of lawyers and judges into "helping professionals"—suggests that therapeutic justice will lead not to the remoralization of society but to the rise of a therapeutic state...

...In drug court, however, the mission of the court is transmuted...

...The rest of the graduating class—about 20 in all— whooped and hollered from the jury box...

...Many participants are sanctioned a number of times before finally staying clean long enough (three months) to graduate...

...And it is here that the drug court revolution is most worrisome...

...Each week, the client attends two group therapy sessions ("feelings processing groups"), receives individual counseling, and takes substance abuse education classes...

...There are pictures on the wall from the most recent drug court picnic...

...hundreds of national, state, and local associations for drug court professionals...

...The Drug Court graduation is the Super Bowl, NBA Finals, and World Series all rolled into one...

...Once the client agrees, his treatment begins immediately...

...Drug court is, as its advocates triumphally declare, "a revolution in justice...

...A closer look at the statistics, however, tells a far less heroic tale...

...They thank the judge, their treatment counselor, and (some of them, anyway) God...

...Indeed, when it comes to dealing with most drug-related misdemeanors, drug courts are actually more demanding and coercive than the usual suspended sentence and probation...

...Nevertheless, the drug court program does, at its best, teach some moral lessons—if for no other reason than that clients are required to show up on time, hand in assignments, and examine their lives...

...He's very creative," his lawyer told me...

...When I ask a number of the therapists and the judge whether they try to teach any moral lessons to their "clients," they all look stunned, then offended...

...Then the offender comes before the judge, who asks him if he is willing to waive his right to a speedy trial to opt instead for, as Canan puts it, "an opportunity to change your life and clear your record...

...Upon arrival, the client undergoes a lengthy psychological evaluation: He signs pages and pages of release forms...

...The individuals who commit these crimes are sick, they insist, and should be treated by therapists rather than punished and exiled...

...Are justice and therapy one and the same thing...

...It's really open-court therapy," Judge Canan told me...

...Smith has maintained a firm pattern of sobriety...

...And all my lawyers...

...There is a National Drug Court Institute...

...A revolution has been going on in the criminal justice system over the past ten years," writes Judge Tauber...

...Offenders who would otherwise be unwatched or at best loosely monitored are instead kept to a rigorous schedule and drug-tested twice a week...

...Strikingly, in all the hundreds of pages of workbooks, self-assessment guides, and personality tests, there is never a mention of morality, character, virtue, or right and wrong...

...Indeed, drug court judges talk directly to "clients," who are encouraged to "share their feelings" in the courtroom...

...Those who are eligible—and this varies somewhat from court to court, though it generally includes any defendant indicted for a nonviolent drug offense— are given the choice of standing trial or entering mandatory, court-regulated treatment...

...He builds a "personal recovery schedule" and learns "effective feelings management...

...In the present euphoria over the "drug court revolution," these questions are almost never pondered...

...A positive test results in "sanctions"—typically three days of "motivational jail...

...The statistics they cite seem impressive: According to the Department of Justice's drug court program office and the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, 70 percent of all drug court participants have either finished the program or stayed in treatment...

...Junkies were redefined as victims of both an undeserved social pathology and a sickness...

...Graduations should be "used to capture the public's interest and garner favorable media publicity," writes Judge Stephen Marcus, one of the gurus of the drug court movement...

...The event is moving, and perfectly attuned to our Eric Cohen is managing editor of THE PUBLIC INTEREST...

...We understood it would take a new kind of community . . . a circle of interveners . . . to restore our cities and our people to health...

...This is one of the happier days we have in Drug Court," said Canan...

...A self-governing people should not abandon the effort to help drug offenders become decent citizens again...

...And I want to say that you've got to want to stop smoking...

...He writes an autobiography ("for the purpose of allowing us to know the inner you...

...We don't do that...

...a drug court journal...

...It did not come out of nowhere, though, but is the culmination of three decades of agitation to supplant traditional criminal justice with therapeutic rehabilitation...

...Williams, by the way, is still awaiting trial on prostitution charges...

...After the monthly progress report, the treatment counselor makes a recommendation about the client's status in the drug court program, which the judge, after a few words of encouragement or fatherly scolding, almost always accepts...

...Jones has made significant contributions to group process and is ready to update her treatment plan— while prosecutors remain silent...

...We don't try to dictate judgments," says Rashida Mims, assistant treatment coordinator...

...In 1970, Congress passed the Treatment and Rehabilitation Act, which gave courts the authority to commit drug offenders to treatment...

...In the lobby, drugs-ruined-my-life videos run nonstop while clients wait for their next counseling session or drug test...

...Some 140,000 defendants who would otherwise have been prosecuted for non-violent drug offenses have enrolled in drug courts since 1989...

...If the defendant elects drug court, he is assigned to a case manager—a "licensed addiction treatment professional"—who explains the program in a lengthy pretrial orientation...

...I want to thank God...

...They want to expand the therapeutic model to cases of domestic violence, larceny, prostitution, and even rape...

...In addition, Nolan found that many of the leading studies are based on questionable, often misleading assumptions—such as excluding early dropouts from the calculation of success rates or counting as success stories individuals who have stayed in the program for more than a year (despite the fact that such career participants have not graduated because they routinely fail their drug tests...

...The Washington, D.C., treatment facility is state of the art and looks like a mix of pediatrician's office and elementary school...

...They see drug courts as the first step in the transformation of the courts into a wholly therapeutic enterprise...

...In fact, many drug court professionals reject on principle evaluations of their program according to such empirical, hardheaded criteria as recidivism, relapse rates, and urinalysis testing...

...He completes a series of assignments and worksheets—first to "explore his addiction," then to develop a "recovery and warning sign management plan...

...For the fact is that the most passionate advocates for drug courts have a thoroughgoing contempt for "traditional justice...

...They are the brainchild of Attorney General Janet Reno, who organized the first drug court in 1989 when she was state's attorney for Dade County, Florida...

...One personality test asks the clients if they "turn to God" for answers...

...Reno's vision—a courtroom unencumbered by traditional rules, a criminal justice system that focuses on the "individual needs of the client" rather than equal justice for all, cooperative therapy rather than adversarial trials—has taken the nation by storm...

...After the speech and the applause, the clerk read Williams's case, a misdemeanor drug charge...

...Very smart...

...Then the case was dropped—the reward for the "client" (as all defendants are called) having completed the drug court program, a year-long regimen of therapy and frequent court visits...

...This elaborate promotional apparatus, it turns out, is all the more necessary, because the drug courts' results, as yet, don't speak for themselves...

...Other studies by outside agencies—including the Rand Corporation and the American Bar Association— have found that drug courts have had no discernible effect on crime rates...

...As Judge Lawrence Terry puts it, we need to "reeducate judges about what success is...

...Perhaps as significant, the drug court advocacy machine is firmly in place—and growing...

...He learns to identify "intervention points," "triggers," "action urges," and "internal dysfunctions...

...They believe, as one put it, that an emphasis on statistics undermines "the real human realities, the changed lives...

...Your morality isn't necessarily my morality," says Suzzette Brann, the drug court program director...

...Still, he concluded that "there is absolutely no question that the drug court is having a very positive effect upon the lives of many people...

...He takes an AIDS test...

...Everyone in the program takes two drug tests a week—one on Monday, one on Thursday...

...BY ERIC COHEN At the most recent Washington, D.C., Drug Court "graduation"—a monthly event for drug defendants who have successfully stayed in treatment—Mark Williams stole the show...

...A professor of criminal justice at Florida International University conducted a study that found "little difference between persons remaining in the [drug court] program and those who have not...

...There are pamphlets everywhere—on every drug imaginable, on sexually transmitted diseases, on various government programs...

...James Nolan, a sociologist whose recent book The Therapeutic State devotes a chapter to drug courts, found that despite the claims of drug court advocates, the most important factor in the apparent success of drug courts is the criminal history of the defendants, not the treatment program...

...and an endless stream of resource guides and pamphlets selling the concept with all the public relations savvy of Madison Avenue—think Chicken Soup for the Addict...

...This is not an outcome that a free society should welcome...

...Judges were judges, prosecutors were prosecutors, and therapists were therapists...

...Judge Russell Canan, who was presiding over the ceremony, couldn't help but chuckle...

...The rest begin treatment with the drug court staff...

...We don't frame it as a moral lesson...