When Ellen Sousares learned that her 22-year-old son, Darren, had been arrested in 2014 for felony possession of heroin and diverted into drug court, she wasn’t upset or ashamed. She was overjoyed. Darren had been addicted to heroin for six years. At the time of his arrest, he was living on the street in Colorado, far from her home in California. He’d already overdosed seriously enough to require emergency care at least six times. He had repeatedly tried rehab, but he’d never stayed long enough to get his mental health properly evaluated. Finally, Ellen thought, he’d be forced to get the help he really needed.
Drug courts celebrated their 25th anniversary last year. Designed for defendants who have committed non-violent felonies such as drug dealing or burglary while addicted, they have been touted as a perfect balance of treatment and punishment, and as a way for the most corrigible offenders to avoid the harsh sentences mandated by drug-war laws. The idea is appealingly simple. If defendants complete a program of drug testing and mandatory treatment—often including short jail terms, known as flash incarcerations, in the case of serious rule violations—they can avoid lengthy mandatory prison terms. Those who fail to “graduate” from the program, in the self- improvement-geared parlance of drug courts, face the mandated sentence, or sometimes an even harsher one. Coercion, the theory goes, is the key to rehabilitation.
[For more of this story, written by Maia Szalavitz, go to http://www.psmag.com/politics-...dosed-on-drug-courts]
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