A Criminological Fly in the Ointment? A Reply to Pratt and Turanovic’s Misinterpretation of Problem-solving Court Ideology toward Participant Generality of Deviance

ABSTRACT

Problem-solving courts are courts that oversee specialized dockets of participants who have comparable underlying causes which have prompted their entrance into the criminal justice system (e.g., substance abuse or mental health issues). Through their use of evidence-based practices, including treatment options and the use of risk-need-responsivity models, problem-solving courts aim to identify court participants who are at high risk for re-offending and in critical need of rehabilitative services. However, in their manuscript titled A Criminological Fly in the Ointment: Specialty Courts and the Generality of Deviance, Pratt and Turanovic make several incorrect claims regarding these types of courts. Specifically, the authors claim that problem-solving courts operate under the ideology that court participants are specialists when it comes to their offending, they aim to increase speed of processing cases through the criminal justice system, and that they do not utilize evidence-based practices. This reply aims to correct these claims and concludes with a brief discussion of current issues that these types of courts face moving forward.

KEYWORDS:

• Problem-solving courts
• specialty courts
• generality of deviance
• versatility of offending
• evidence-based treatment
• case processing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. While the majority of PSCs serve high risk/high need participants who are likely to have extensive criminal histories, certain charges, such as those involving violence or that are sexual in nature, will automatically exclude those offenders from participation. In addition, there exists both misdemeanor and felony PSCs which deal with varying levels of charges.

2. Boldt and Singer (2006) were referencing the assignment of a single judge to preside over a family court in order to build familiarity with each case, as opposed to having differing judges presiding over the same case at different points in time, leading to the cases being unnecessarily delayed and, as a result, less efficient. This research highlights the fact that this familiarity, as is the case with PSCs having a dedicated treatment team working directly with the same cases, lends itself to more efficient case processing.