NCJ Number
198593
Journal
Substance Use & Misuse Volume: 37 Issue: 12 & 13 Dated: October/November 2002 Pages: 1723-1750
Editor(s)
Stanley Einstein Ph.D.
Date Published
October 2002
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This paper explores the application of the disease model to drug and non-drug-related crimes in the context of drug treatment courts and discusses the implications to the meaning of "criminal justice."
Abstract
The adoption by the judiciary of the disease model to explain drug-using behavior is a defining feature of the drug treatment court movement and profoundly shapes the way judges view and treat defendants. The author discusses the fact that this use of the disease model is an interpretive paradigm that has not been important in the adjudication of drug offenders in general in the past. The traditional paradigm understands drug abuse as a willful choice made by an offender capable of choosing between right and wrong, whereas the disease model treats drug abuse as a biopsychosocial disease. Topic areas include a review of the author's methodology, a definition of the illness model, the centrality of self-esteem, and guiltless justice, expansion to other crimes, and courtroom therapy for non-drug-related crimes. In conclusion, this author notes that an expansion of the disease model is the logical progression of the inclusion of the treatment process into criminal adjudication. A source list of references is included.