NCJ Number
226483
Journal
Criminology & Criminal Justice Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2009 Pages: 29-49
Date Published
February 2009
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This article focuses on the role of judicial involvement in the review of Scottish drug court participants’ progress, drawing on court observation and interviews with offenders and drug court professionals.
Abstract
Results suggest that the interactions that took place in court between offenders and sentencers encouraged increased compliance and supported offenders in their efforts to address their drug use and associated offending. Three factors that may have impacted upon the quality of drug court interactions include: (1) during the first 2 years of the Glasgow pilot, most offenders who entered the drug court had tendered early guilty pleas and may have been relatively motivated at the outset to engage with a drug court regime; (2) the extent to which drug court processes might be affected by changes in personnel; and (3) the relevance of gender, both of the sentencer and of the offender, to the nature and dynamics of court-based exchanges. Drug court dialogues are argued to increase the perceived legitimacy of the court and by so doing encourage increased compliance with treatment and desistance from crime. Scotland established pilot drug courts in Glasgow (2001) and Fife (2002) sharing many features similar to courts in other jurisdictions. An evaluation of the drug court pilots sought to establish whether they were being successful in reducing misuse and related offending, whether they were cost-effective, and whether the procedures that had been instituted were operating well. This article focuses on one particular aspect of the drug courts operation: the involvement of sheriffs in overseeing the progress offenders made subject to orders. Notes and references