Burns2003

Burns2003
BibType	ARTICLE
Key	Burns2003
Author(s)	Stacy Lee Burns, Mark Peyrot
Title	Tough lough: Nurturing and coercing responsibility and recovering in California drug courts
Editor(s)
Tag(s)	EMCA, Courtroom Interaction, Drugs, Negotiations
Publisher
Year	2003
Language
City
Month
Journal	Social Problems
Volume	50
Number	3
Pages	416-438
URL	Link
DOI	http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/sp.2003.50.3.416
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This article considers the activities of the participants in California drug treatment courts and their differences from more traditional criminal courts. The article focuses on how drug court judges and defendants interact to construct the defendant as a personally responsible and rehabilitatively changed "recovering" person, or, alternatively, as an essentially "addicted" and deficient self. The research also explores broader links between the ways drug courts operate and the potential complications involved in mixing coerced treatment and "voluntary" participation. The study finds that certain kinds of defendants may be discovered to be unsuitable for participation in the program; that clients negotiate with the judge over the nature of their (numerous) infractions; and that clients proceeding through the program may be terminated, move backward in treatment stages, have their treatment extended, or be advanced forward and on to the next stage of treatment. The article argues that, while drug court provides offenders the chance to avoid imprisonment and permanent stigmatization by participating in the discourse of aid and treatment, "offenders" in drug court also submit to a combination of penal and therapeutic aims. In practice, this means that judges are likely to exercise enhanced supervision, monitoring, and control over their lives because they are being "rehabilitated."

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