Describe the premise and standard elements of problem-solving or specialty courts.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers may vary.Certain offenders are summoned back to court and returned to prison repeatedly. For them, the criminal justice system has become all too familiar home. Fed up with this model of "revolving-door" justice, states and communities increasingly are creating problem-solving courts (also called specialty courts) that combine the traditional criminal justice system with specialized treatment-oriented principles to address underlying causes of antisocial behavior.The premise of specialty courts is that the legal system should help troubled individuals cope with the chronic problems that brought them into contact with the criminal justice system in the first place. This collaborative, non-adversarial nature of specialty courts, in which judges work side by side with mental health professionals, community agencies, and offenders themselves, focuses more on meeting the ongoing needs of participants than on punishing them. This approach, in which the law is used as a vehicle to improve people's lives, is called therapeutic jurisprudence. Examples include courts specialized to deal with problems involving drugs, mental health, homelessness, and domestic violence, as well as veterans' issues, and courts that integrate these problems, for example, by applying mental health court techniques in domestic violence cases. Regardless of the problem, all specialty courts involve a few common elements, including immediate interventions such as drug or alcohol counseling, frequent court appearances in a non-adversarial context, an interdisciplinary team approach, and a set of clearly defined objectives.Working together with mental health providers, attorneys, and probation officers, judges in these courts become social workers and cheerleaders as much as jurists. Rather than impose punishment, they offer opportunities for people to deal with their addictions, anger, and disputes. Those who comply with the judges' orders may have their sentences reduced or dismissed.Although some aspects of these courts are traditional-for instance, judges wear robes-many characteristics of specialty courts are unconventional. For example, the people who appear in court are often called clients rather than defendants. These "clients" are able to speak directly to the judge, rather than communicating through their attorneys. Judges often have a great deal of information about clients, and may interact with them over a number of years.