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Innovation and Discretion

The Drug Court as a People-Processing Institution

West Virginia University, Morgantown

Drug courts emerged in the late 1980s as a solution to the mutual person-processing needs of the criminal justice and substance abuse treatment systems. In this article, the author draws on a rich body of observational data gathered during a 2-year period to illustrate the ways in which drug courts process program participants. I focus on the challenges faced by a drug court work group in shepherding new program participants into treatment. Specific processing activities include (a) locating appropriate eligible participants, (b) discovering an adequate diagnosis, (c) aligning resources necessary for placement, and (d) monitoring placements. The article identifies ways in which the interdisciplinary drug court model is optimally designed to address people-processing objects and simultaneously limited by conceptual and organizational ambiguities. The author concludes with a discussion of the unintended policy consequences of the drug court model and suggestions for future research.

Key Words: drug courts • discretion • people processing

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