Testing and Developing Theory in Drug Court: A Four-Part Logit Model to Predict Program Completion

• Date: 01 March 2001
• Author: Scott R. Senjo,Leslie A. Leip
• Published date: 01 March 2001
• DOI: 10.1177/0887403401012001004
• Subject Matter: Journal Article

Senjo, Leip / THEOR
CRIMIN
Y IN DR
AL JUSTICE POLICY REVIEW / March 2001
UG COURT
Testing and Developing Theory
in Drug Court: A Four-Part Logit
Model to Predict Program Completion
Scott R. Senjo
Weber State University
Leslie A. Leip
Florida Atlantic University
The expansion of drug courts into numerous additional jurisdictions continues at a
rapid pace. Despite this, and the commensurate growth of drug court literature, there
remains a surprising paucity of empirical studies that test and develop an underlying
theory for drug court. This research is an empirical study that analyzes and tests ther-
apeutic jurisprudence as the theory behind the drug court mission and its day-to-day
operations. A logit model is used to assess the strength of specific theoretical compo-
nents on an offender’s ability to complete the drug court program. The findings indi-
cate, among other things, that the manner of interactions between the judge and
offenders can increase the likelihood of an offender’s ability to remain abstinent and
stay engaged in treatment for the duration of the drug court program.
Drug Treatment Court (hereafter “drug court”) is a judicially monitored,
intensive drug treatment program for nonviolent drug offenders. Since 1989
and the inception of the first drug court in Miami, Florida, the courts have
proliferated across the United States. Ten years later, as of June 1999, 361
courts were in operation, and another 220 were planned. Various jurisdic-
tions include Guam, Puerto Rico, two federal districts, and 44 Native Amer-
ican tribal courts. California has more than 70 drug courts, and nationally
more than 140,000 offenders have participated in the program (Belenko,
1998, p. 3).
In 1998, President Clinton offered continued support of the drug court
concept when he announced $27 million in federal funding (U.S. Depart-
ment of Justice, 1998). In fiscal year 1999, Congress appropriated $40 mil-
lion through the Department of Justice for planning, implementation, and
enhancement grants for drug courts (Belenko, 1998, p. 3). Support also has
Criminal Justice Policy Review, Volume 12, Number 1, March 2001
66-87
© 2001 Sage Publications, Inc.
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Senjo, Leip / THEORY IN DRUG COURT
67
emanated from the research community. In a review of drug court research,
Belenko (1998) stated that
drug courts provide closer, more comprehensive supervision and much more
frequent drug testing and monitoring during the program than other forms of
community supervision. More importantly, drug use and criminal behavior are
substantially reduced while offenders are participating in drug court. (p. 2)
The underlying theory of drug court is the theory of therapeutic jurispru-
dence (TJ). In the Notre Dame Law Review, Hora, Schma, and Rosenthal
(1999) introduced TJ as a theory that has valuable, explanatory power for
understanding drug courts. TJ “focuses on the sociopsychological ways in
which laws and legal processes affect individuals involved in the legal sys-
tem” (Hora et al., 1999, p. 3). An elaboration of this theory appears in the
pages that follow. The hope of these scholars is that by applying TJ theory to
drug court, research can be used to assist drug court administrators, legisla-
tors, and community leaders with the development of new drug courts and
improvement of established ones.
The purpose of this research is to examine three TJ theoretical compo-
nents: court monitoring, drug treatment, and criminal procedure and their
impact on drug court program completion. In addition to the court monitor-
ing, drug treatment, and criminal procedure components, offender charac-
teristics such as age and race are incorporated. Hence, a four-part model,
which incorporates court monitoring, drug treatment, criminal procedure,
and offender characteristics, is used to empirically investigate the likeli-
hood of program completion for offenders who participate in the drug court
program. This research is significant because the four-part model incorpo-
rates the components that are part of TJ theory and have been identified in
the drug court literature as having an impact on program completion.
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
TJ is a relatively new legal theory that was originally defined by Wexler
and Winick (1991) as the study of the extent to which legal rules, legal pro-
cedures, and the roles of lawyers and judges produce therapeutic or anti-
therapeutic consequences for individuals involved in the legal process. As
the theory was applied by legal and academic scholars, the definition
evolved into “the use of social science to study the extent to which a legal
rule or practice promotes the psychological and physical well being of the
people it affects” (Slobogin, 1995, p. 193).

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CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY REVIEW / March 2001
TJ originally was used to better understand the repercussions of civil
commitment law. Wexler (1992) raises several legal and TJ questions about
civil commitment such as the right to counsel or a jury in civil commitment
proceedings. Perlin (1996) applies TJ to insanity defense jurisprudence,
asking “Is a non-responsibility verdict therapeutic for offenders?” From
those early inquiries, TJ gained acceptance as a theoretical framework for
law and justice studies mainly because it offered a court of law and the par-
ties to a legal dispute a greater breadth of information regarding the impact
of the law. More recently, Hora et al. (1999) applied TJ to drug courts to
show the impact of the drug court process on offenders in the program.
These scholars stated that
although born without the advantage of TJ analysis, the DTC [drug treatment
court] movement represents a significant step in the evolution of TJ—the
evolutionary step from theory to application. Through the introduction of
drug treatment principles to addicted criminal defendants . . . DTCs unknow-
ingly apply the concepts of TJ every day in hundreds of courtrooms across
America. Once DTCs realize this, they can use TJ principles to enhance exist-
ing procedures, to make a greater impact on the lives of drug-addicted and
alcoholic criminal defendants, and to increase the safety of communities
across America. (p. 4)
Collaborative Decision Making
The drug court is a specialized criminal court that streamlines drug cases
away from traditional processing and punishment into an intensive drug
treatment program. The drug treatment aspect of the court mandates that
drug courts practice a collaborative style of case management to promote
the psychological and physical well-being of the offenders, which is the
foundation of TJ. For the collaborative case management style to be effec-
tive, the judge, prosecution, defense counsel, drug treatment providers, and
probation representative work together to monitor the treatment progress of
those who participate in the program. The court collaboration is innovative
and a substantial turnaround from the practices of the adversarial model of
traditional courtroom litigation. Collaboration creates new and different
roles for the judge, prosecution, and defense attorneys in drug court. They
abandon the traditional goals of their sponsoring agencies and instead work
together to assist, rather than only sanction, offenders in treatment. “The
metamorphosis of these roles allows the goal of the court to become primar-
ily therapeutic while remaining a legal institution” (Hora et al., 1999, p. 15).
Collaborative case management is illustrated in Figure 1.

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Senjo, Leip / THEORY IN DRUG COURT
69
Figure 1:
Representation of the Drug Court Collaborative Case Management
Role of the Judge
Central to the unique collaboration style of the court is the judge. “The
judge is the leader of the drug court team, linking participants to . . . drug
treatment and to the criminal justice system” (U.S. Department of Justice,
1997, p. 27). The judge legally retains the prerogative over the final disposi-
tion of each case and uses his or her statutory power to achieve more than the
goal of retribution and deterrence. The judge seeks to impact the behavior of
offenders by using support and guidance rather than only threats of sanction/
intimidation often found in regular criminal case processing. As Belenko
(1998) pointed out, the judge “functions as a reinforcer of positive client
behavior” (p. 4). According to Tauber (1993),
Judges are in a unique position to exert effective leadership in the promotion
of coordinated drug control efforts, both within the criminal justice system
and their local communities. Judges have the political influence, the ties to
government agencies, the moral authority, the perceived fairness and impar-
tiality, and the expertise and focus necessary to bring leadership to coordi-
nated antidrug efforts. (p. 4)
One of the most important features of the drug court is the opportunity for
the judge to use comments made from the bench to keep offenders engaged

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CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY REVIEW / March 2001
in drug treatment. These court-monitoring comments are based on treat-
ment progress reports provided by the drug treatment provider and the pro-
bation representative. In addition, the comments are also based on the rela-
tively close relationship the judge and offender eventually develop from
numerous status conferences in court. Most judges and other court actors
are assigned to the drug court for at least a 1-year term to provide continuity
and stability for offenders who are in the throes of drug treatment (Tauber,
1994). The 1-year period facilitates the establishment of a work relationship
between the offender and the...