DRUG TREATMENT COURTS AND THE DISEASE PARADIGM*

Abstract

A defining feature of the drug treatment court movement is the judicial adoption of the disease model for explaining drug using behavior; an interpretive paradigm that historically has not played a defining role in the adjudication of drug offenders. In drug treatment courts, however, the disease model finds a very central place in the adjudicative process, and profoundly shapes the way judges view and treat defendants. This article examines the application of the disease model to drug and non-drug-related crimes in the context of drug treatment courts, and considers the significance of these developments as it concerns the meaning of criminal justice.

• Drug court
• Drug treatment courts
• Disease paradigm
• Criminal adjudication
• Treatment
• Mentoring courts
• Therapeutic justice
• Judicial pathologization

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James L. Nolan

James L. Nolan Jr. is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Williams College. He is the recipient of several awards including a Fulbright scholarship and two NEH fellowships. He spent the 1999–2000 academic year as a visiting Fulbright Scholar at Loughborough University in England, pursuing comparative research on recent Anglo-American criminal justice innovations. His most recent book is Reinventing Justice: The American Drug Court Movement (Princeton University Press, 2001). Nolan is also author of The Therapeutic State: Justifying Government at Century’s End (New York University Press, 1998) and editor of The American Culture Wars: Current Contests and Future Prospects (University Press of Virginia, 1996). His forthcoming edited volume, Drug Courts: In Theory and Practice will be published by Aldine de Gruyter and released sometime in 2002.