Treating the Tough Cases in Juvenile Drug Court

• Author: Leigh Bates,Michael Polakowski,Roger E. Hartley
• Published date: 01 September 2008
• Date: 01 September 2008
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734016808321462
• Subject Matter: Articles

Treating the Tough Cases in

Juvenile Drug Court

Individual and Organizational Practices

Leading to Success or Failure

Michael Polakowski

Roger E. Hartley

University of Arizona

Leigh Bates

New York State Office of Children and Family Services

Drug Courts are a fundamental change to trial courts. They are considered less adversarial and

may alter past notions of treatment for offenders. One goal of drug courts is to provide defen-

dants the opportunity to alter their drug-addicted lifestyles through intense supervision, feed-

back, treatment, and graduated sanctions and rewards for behavior. This study uses logistic

regression to examine measures of failure such as termination from drug court and two mea-

sures of offender recidivism. Although the literature on drug courts has been developing for

several years, the reality is that universal templates for explanation do not yet exist in the juve-

nile arena. This paper examines correlates that explain the above measures of failure. The study

also proposes the creation of new measures that may assist future research. Findings indicate

that participant experiences within the drug court program are the strongest predictors of

termination and recidivism.

Keywords: drug courts; recidivism; juvenile; failure; therapeutic jurisprudence

The escalation of the war on drugs in the 1980s had several intended consequences

including just say no, longer and more certain prison and jail sentences, and the creation

of specialty drug task forces among many other policies. One of the more significant unin-

tended consequences of these policies was the dramatic inflation of prison populations

across the country. In the 1990s, some predicted that if nothing changed in the way the jus-

tice system handled drug offenses, incarceration facilities would overflow with nonviolent

drug users and sellers. As anticipated, these dire predictions came true for federal facilities

where 53% of federal inmates were incarcerated for drug crimes as of 2006, a figure that

was up 26% since 2000 (U.S. Department of Justice [USDJ], 2007c). Due to statutory

requirements, federal drug defendants served longer mean and median sentences than their

379

Criminal Justice Review

Volume 33 Number 3

September 2008 379-404

© 2008 Georgia State University

Research Foundation, Inc.

10.1177/0734016808321462

http://cjr.sagepub.com

hosted at

http://online.sagepub.com

Authors’Note: The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers of the Criminal Justice Review for their help-

ful suggestions, editing, and comments. Correspondence concerning this article may be addressed to Mike

Polakowski, University of Arizona,School of Public Administration and Policy, Eller College of Management,

405 MM McClelland Hall, 1130 E. Helen Street, Tucson, AZ 85721; e-mail: mikep@eller.arizona.edu.

contemporaries excluding some convicted of violent offenses and weapons charges (USDJ,

2006). Even though the majority of states only experienced moderate fluctuations in the

proportion of offenders sentenced for drug crimes over the past decade, there was a signifi-

cant increase in the number of offenders housed in state correctional facilities for drugs

(2007). The U.S. Department of Justice reports that this figure increased from 18,000 in

1980 to more than 249,000 in 2004 (USDJ, 2007b). A large portion of this increase was

among persons under the age of 18 (USDJ, 2007a).

As a response to these trends, a movement began in 1989 to create treatment-centered

drug courts that emphasized community based programming, diversion, and supervision

for nonviolent drug offenders. Many of these programs arose because of the availability of

federal grant funds and the belief that intensive community treatment might mitigate future

criminal behavior (Douglas & Hartley, 2004; Nolan, 2001). These alternatives were offered

to reduce the burden that drug defendants posed on the broader, resource-strapped, crimi-

nal justice system (Nolan, 2001). Among many individual-centered goals, the reduction of

recidivism was a prominent reason for adopting these programs. By 2003, more than 1,000

drug courts were either operating (1,093) or planned (414) across the nation with more than

200 of these offering services strictly to juveniles (Office of Justice Programs [OJP], 2003).

Unlike traditional court-ordered treatment, drug courts require more intensive interac-

tion with the defendants and are unique in that court and treatment staff members combine

their talents as a team to ensure that the defendant abides by all of the conditions of the pro-

gram. The primary focus is on treatment (Nolan, 2001). Drug courts, by their very nature,

require consistent, repetitive, and long-term involvement of offenders and drug court team

members. This includes attending treatment programs, frequent drug tests, frequent atten-

dance at weekly drug court hearings at the court, and the provision of other services like

job and educational training.

The literature on drug courts has grown and there remain significant debates about what

constitutes a successful outcome and what characteristics of either an individual or a pro-

gram predict such a result (Sloan & Smykla, 2003). The intense program requirements may

be a significant factor in whether a defendant succeeds or fails. Feeley (1983) notes that

past court innovations, similar to drug courts, failed simply because the “supposedly for-

mal and harsh traditional court offers a speedier and more lenient alternative” to some court

reforms (Feeley, 1983). Feeley’s warning predates the drug court movement but surely cap-

tures the concern of some contemporary observers of the evolution of therapeutic or

restorative court programs (see Baar & Solomon, 2000; Sloan & Smykla, 2003). Baar and

Solomon (2000) argued that some restorative or therapeutic justice programs in practice

emphasized strict protocols that maintain public order rather than emphasizing treatment

and other individual needs of offenders.

This study begins by examining the termination or graduation of juvenile drug court par-

ticipants in a Southwest community and compares the postprogram behavior (referrals to

court and convictions) of both graduates and those that were terminated from the program as

measures of recidivism. The study builds on existing literature by examining both individual

and structural characteristics of the program that appear to lead to successful outcomes. The

results add to the evolving discussion of what are successful drug court participants and pro-

gram procedures. Several comparisons are made between our empirical results and the reports

collected by the Office of Justice Programs Drug Court Technical Assistance Project housed

380 Criminal Justice Review