The Early Drug Courts

Case Studies in Judicial Innovation

A natural companion to the recently published Drug Control and the Courts (SAGE 1996), this accessible volume focuses on five case studies in judicial innovation - the dedicated drug treatment courts in Miami, Oakland, Fort Lauderdale, Portland and Phoenix. Each case is presented in a chapter written by a local expert to describe and evaluate five prime examples of dedicated drug treatment courts. These chapters are written to a common outline and each discuss the following points: community demographics; structural organization of the court; court caseloads, including drug cases; successes and failures of initial goals and objectives and subsequent adaptations; and measures of long-term successes and failures (recidivism and successful completion of treatment programmes).