“People, Places, and Things”: Understanding the Context of Participants’ Lives in a Diversion Drug Court

• Published date: 01 October 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00938548241257606
• Author: Elizabeth N. Hartsell,Mckenzie L. Jossie,Jodi Lane
• Date: 01 October 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2024, Vol. 51, No. 10, October 2024, 1511 –1529.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00938548241257606

Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions

© 2024 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

1511

“PEOPLE, PLACES, AND THINGS”

Understanding the Context of Participants’ Lives in a

Diversion Drug Court

ELIZABETH N. HARTSELL

Sam Houston State University

MCKENZIE L. JOSSIE

Louisiana State University

JODI LANE

University of Florida

To better understand the struggles drug court participants face and their relationship to graduation status, we took freehand

notes during observations of staff meetings (N = 119) and court dockets (N = 147) and used thematic analysis to examine

the notations. Themes included participants’ ongoing mental and physical health issues, legal issues outside of drug court,

experience with both prosocial and antisocial relationships, drug use by family and friends, and a variety of treatment barri-

ers even in a program designed to mitigate these. We expected ongoing legal issues outside of drug court, physical and

mental health struggles, and family and friends being supportive, or not, to be related to graduation but they were not.

However, COVID-19 and treatment barriers were significantly related to graduation status. Results add to the scholarly lit-

erature, especially that focusing on justice and court processes post-COVID-19, and can assist practitioners in understanding

what factors may need more attention and resources.

Keywords: drug court; problem-solving court; substance use; stressors

AUTHORS’ NOTE: This work is part of a larger project in part supported by the Bureau of Justice Assistance

under Grant 2020-DC-BX-0148, through a sub-award to the University of Florida (UF Principal Investigator,

Jodi Lane: Study Project Coordinators: Elizabeth Hartsell & McKenzie Jossie). The authors would like to

thank the Marion County Diversion Drug Court team for their cooperation and participation in this research.

They would also like to thank our undergraduate research assistants who helped with data entry: Corinne

Griffin, Rachel Lucy, Saman Valiani, Anisa Zwolinski, Isabelle Wein, Karina Zaldivar, Danielle Dudley, Shelby

Wasserman, Jennifer Farri, Amanda Wysocki, Casey Gabriel, Sydney Leifermann, Jaydeen Ibanez, Daena

Pusey, Soniy Alamdari, Natalie Talarico, Connor Fites, Luis Artiles, Andrea Aponte, Laurisa Stevens, Anna

Johnston, Belinda Mozo. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Elizabeth N. Hartsell,

Assistant Professor, Beto Criminal Justice Center, Sam Houston State University, 816 17th Street, Office 107,

Huntsville, TX 77340; e-mail: ehartsell@shsu.edu.

1257606CJBXXX10.1177/00938548241257606Criminal Justice and BehaviorHartsell et al. / Understanding the Context of Participants’ Lives

research-article2024

1512 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR

INTRODUCTION

In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2023) reported 106,699

drug overdose deaths—an increase from 91,799 in 2020. This year-to-year increase follows

the trendline of an increase in drug overdose deaths in the United States for the past two

decades; from 2015 to 2021 alone the number of overdose deaths in the United States more

than doubled (CDC, 2023). More broadly, 40.3 million people (12 years old, or older) met the

criteria for a substance use disorder (SUD) according to the most recent National Survey on

Drug Use and Health data for 2020 (SAMHSA, 2021). As defined by the Substance Abuse

and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a SUD “occur[s] when the recurrent

use of alcohol and/or drugs causes clinically significant impairment, including health prob-

lems, disability, and failure to meet major responsibilities at work, school, or home”

(SAMHSA, 2023). One justice system response to drug-related arrests for persons meeting

SUD criteria has been the rapid spread of drug courts with over 4,000 courts nationally

(National Treatment Court Resource Center, 2023). Drug courts are problem-solving courts

that use incentives, sanctions, mandatory drug testing, peer support meetings, and substance

use treatment to reduce drug use and related crime (“Defining Drug Courts: The Key

Components,” 2004; Florida Adult Drug Court Best Practice Standards, 2017). Programs

include judicial monitoring and case management services. With the widespread use of the

drug court model, it is important to understand the experiences of drug court participants so

that courts can improve services with the goals of reducing substance use and related arrests

and deaths and improving participant well-being and hopefully community safety.

PRIOR STUDIES AND CONTRIBUTION OF THIS STUDY

Prior studies indicate that transportation, finances, physical and mental health/health

insurance, and family struggles and concerns for children were common stressors among

drug court participants (Lucenko et al., 2014; Morse et al., 2015; Palombi et al., 2019a,

2019b; Wolf & Colyer, 2001). Housing and legal problems outside of drug court were also

concerns (Lucenko et al., 2014; Morse et al., 2015; Palombi et al., 2019a, 2019b; Wolf &

Colyer, 2001). Palombi et al. (2019a) noted that some participants had to create new rela-

tionships away from drug use and the people with whom they used drugs. Our study builds

on this research by examining whether these and other barriers apply to participants in this

court and by tying these barriers to graduation status. Prior qualitative studies (Morse et al.,

2015; Palombi et al., 2019a, 2019b; Wolf & Colyer, 2001) did not always examine these

issues in relationship to graduation directly, an important contribution of our study.

The risk-need-responsivity (RNR) model indicates that addressing the more holistic

needs of people involved in the criminal justice system is necessary (Andrews et al., 1990).

However, few studies use extensive observation methods to study what barriers exist for

drug court participants and the context in which teams and participants struggle to address

these needs (see Wolf & Colyer, 2001). Yet evidence from prior studies in drug courts indi-

cates that addressing factors such as housing, employment, and physical/mental health care

is important to success (Carey et al., 2012; Leukefeld et al., 2007). Specifically, in courts

that offered mental health care, parenting classes, family counseling, and/or anger manage-

ment classes, recidivism was reduced (Carey et al., 2012). In an examination of an employ-

ment intervention’s dose effects in a drug court, Leukefeld et al. (2007) found that those

who participated in the intervention were less likely to use drugs and engage in crime later.