The Early Drug Courts: Case Studies in Judicial Innovation - Drugs, Health, and Social Policy

A natural companion to the recently published Drug Control and the Courts (SAGE 1996), this accessible volume focuses on five case studies in judicial innovation - the dedicated drug treatment courts in Miami, Oakland, Fort Lauderdale, Portland and Phoenix. Each case is presented in a chapter written by a local expert to describe and evaluate five prime examples of dedicated drug treatment courts. These chapters are written to a common outline and each discuss the following points: community demographics; structural organization of the court; court caseloads, including drug cases; successes and failure of initial goals and objectives and subsequent adaptations; and measures of long-term successes and failures (recidivism and successful completion of treatment programmes). The Editor's introductory chapter on judicial innovation and dedicated drug courts reveals why dedicated courts are unique: a) the focus is on treatment, b) there is non traditional collaborative, team approach, and c) participants are monitored by the judiciary. Thus, the court is an integral part of the treatment process itself, not just a referral point. The concluding chapter written by John Goldkamp, a proven researcher of drug courts, synthesizes what we have learned from the evaluation of the exemplar courts and what might be researched in order to understand more about these courts - all of which speaks to the continued development and refinement of dedicated drug treatment courts.