What Do Social Workers Need to Know About Mental Health Courts?

Abstract

Mental health courts are an emerging strategy to engage mentally ill offenders in treatment and to avoid unnecessary incarceration. These courts began in 1997 based upon the drug court model; there are currently over 70 courts nationwide. These courts are heterogeneous in structure, work with interdisciplinary teams, and seek to engage the consumer in treatment rather than use judicial sanctions. Social workers are integral members of these teams; yet, no research has been published in social work journals on mental health courts. This article explains the background and context of the courts, describes their features, discusses what social workers need to know about mental health courts, and concludes with ideas for how social workers may work effectively with mental health courts.     

Promoting Drug Court Education in Schools of Social Work: Ideas in Action

Drug courts have provided an alternative to incarceration for arrestees with substance use disorders since 1989 in the USA, and the first drug court outside of the USA began in 1998 in Canada. As drug courts continue to increase throughout the world, it is important for social work students to learn about the role of drug courts in their communities, as they may interact with these programs directly or indirectly, whether it is being a member of a task force that begins a drug court or providing substance abuse treatment to participants. This Ideas in Action article conceptualizes drug courts and discusses their relevance for social work education. The article also proposes several direct service-learning techniques, such as completing practicums and course projects, which can be used within schools of social work to educate students about drug courts and promote civic engagement, reflection, and reciprocity.     

Fundamental Justice Is the Issue: Extending Full Equality of the Law to Women and Children

The legal doctrines that are in place to protect women and children against male sexual aggression actually operate to minimize the use of the system for redress, and to reduce the impact of the process when it is used. Because the courts are the only means of legal recourse available to women and children who have been sexually assaulted, any failure by the courts to ensure just outcomes actually serves to reinforce male sexual violence. The solution requires that we stop confusing the social conditions under which this form of violence occurs with the criteria used by courts for treating a crime as “not serious.” The key players in the courts can act as powerful forces for instrumental change.     

Erfolgsfaktoren effizienter Konfliktregelung durch Verhandlung im juristischen Kontext

This article deals with success factors for an efficient solving of legal conflicts using negotiations outside of trial courts. Negotiations, outside the court, provide the chance of finding a good win-win solution for all involved parties. A survey, which aims at finding the most common barriers to the resolution of conflicts outside trial courts, is presented in this article. The survey was conducted in a major international law firm. The lawyers were asked to list the most important reasons for negotiations failures. The results reveal a much higher importance of soft factors, especially communication and relationship issues over hard factors like e.g. business reasons. It is therefore concluded that communication and relationship are key success factors for dispute resolution in legal contexts. It is as well stressed that social science methodology and theories are useful tools for improving the understanding and effectiveness of legal negotiations. Two possible interventions for improving dispute resolution effectiveness in legal contexts are outlined.     

TOWARD A POSITIVE ECONOMIC THEORY OF ANTITRUST

Most economists associate antitrust policy with the Sherman and Clayton Acts. Nonetheless, there is in England and America a much older body of antitrust law, namely, the common law of restraint of trade. This regulation, like language and markets, evolved over a long period of time. This article examines whether the rules that the common law courts developed can be explained by a hypothetical wish to maximize social wealth and concludes that many of them can be. The last part of the article outlines a theory of legal evolution.     

Shaping Judicial Law in the Post-World War II Period: When Is Labor's Legal Mobilization Successful?1

We examine the circumstances in which labor is successful in the federal appellate courts when it has filed unfair labor practice charges against employers. We specifically focus on legal disputes concerning union organizing. Few studies have examined the role of class dynamics in shaping judicial law, even when labor law is studied. We find evidence that two strategies used by class actors influence judicial lawmaking. The greater the degree to which workers mobilize the law, the more likely they are to win union organizing cases in the federal courts. However, the greater the degree to which employers are organizationally mobilized, the less likely it is that judicial outcomes will favor labor. We also find that legal precedent matters in judicial decision making. We conclude that class dynamics are important in judicial lawmaking. However, we also conclude that, to a degree, judicial decisions also remain autonomous from class dynamics.     

The Extent and Rate of Divorce in Plateau State,Nigeria 1980 to 1988

The major issue for this research was to investigate the extent and rate of divorce, its causes and attitudes toward divorce laws. This study surveyed 3500 people from the selected local government areas. The findings show high divorce rate, and 71.2% of the husbands had their divorce in courts as opposed lo 76.6% of the wives who had their marriages annulled in courts. Adultery ranked the highest among the reasons for divorce, while the wives were more likely than their husbands to have negative attitudes toward divorce laws because they are always the victims of divorce not protected by the law.     

Color codification: law,culture and the hue of communication

This paper explores the intersection between color, culture and the legal domain; it reveals how recent, and disturbing, developments in trademark law have allowed for corporate ownership of the powerful communicative media of color and discusses the implications of this (colorful) codification. Mapping the communication of color within our contemporary legal, political and social environment, the paper addresses how color's vibrant significatory power is hemmed in by law, by (legal) language and by corporations. Law, it is argued, stands as one of the primary and most powerful practical “tools” used to shape, standardize and contain contemporary communication – and currently laws governing trademark function to recode and constrain the presumably boundless media of color. This is troubling, since our colorful environment becomes simplified when the array of meanings attributed to a particular hue are narrowed and then granted legitimacy by the courts.     

Ethnic Bias in California Courts: A Case Study of Chicano and Anglo Felony Defendants

This paper reports the results of a study designed to examine the possibility that Mexican-Americans charged with felonies receive biased treatment in California courts. Using data from superior courts in Fresno, California, it is shown that, when charged with similar crimes, Chicanos and Anglos in this district are given quite similar treatment–there is no observable judicial bias. In addition, this study shows a much stronger relationship between seriousness of charge and length of sentence (if guilty) than other earlier studies have. This is attributed to California's determinate sentencing law, which, it appears, forces the courts to give heavy and relatively uniform weight to legally relevant variables in sentencing.     

International labour standards: Recent developments in complementarity between the international and national supervisory systems

Far from competing against one another, the national and international systems of labour regulation are interlocked. ILO standards have been used in recent rulings by the highest jurisdictions of some countries. Examining two decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada and another by the Paris Court of Appeal, the authors clarify the circumstances in which national courts make use of these international sources of law and consequent legal implications. The cases involve proceedings before national courts and ILO bodies, and France and Canada also have different legal cultures, enabling a discussion of how national jurisdictions actually appropriate international labour standards.     

Drug Courts: A Social Capital Perspective*

Social capital is a variable resource embedded in all social networks. Although the majority of work on social capital describes it as contributing to socially beneficial outcomes, it also contributes to deviant activities. In addition to laying a theoretical basis for understanding the deviant potentials of social capital, this paper argues that a change in social networks results in a change in social capital. Using data collected from adult drug courts in Wyoming, multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses and analyses of personal interviews were used to explore changes in the social capital of drug court participants. However, as a result of deficiencies in available data, questions remain as to the long‐term social circumstances of participants after graduating from the programs and differences in social outcomes among minority groups. The results from this project have implications for future research conducted on drug courts and the theory of social capital.     

Fundamental Justice Is the Issue: Extending Full Equality of the Law to Women and Children

The legal doctrines that are in place to protect women and children against male sexual aggression actually operate to minimize the use of the system for redress, and to reduce the impact of the process when it is used. Because the courts are the only means of legal recourse available to women and children who have been sexually assaulted, any failure by the courts to ensure just outcomes actually serves to reinforce male sexual violence. The solution requires that we stop confusing the social conditions under which this form of violence occurs with the criteria used by courts for treating a crime as not serious. The key players in the courts can act as powerful forces for instrumental change.     

Courts,kin, and children: Determinants of court-ordered kin involvement in child protection proceedings

Researchers such as Stack (1983–1984) have suggested that social service providers and administrators such as courts are generally unaware of the existence of extended kinship resources among poor families and, as a consequence, that they are unlikely to use these resources in efforts to treat problems such as alleged child maltreatment. Partially as a response to these suggestions, policy analysts and researchers have become interested in the use of kin in the treatment of child maltreatment. This interest is also the result of suggestions that kin may offer social support for troubled families and that placement of children with kin may be less traumatic to them and more cost-effective than alternative placements. For child protection cases that reach the judicial system, it is the courts that sanction the utilization of kin and other resources in the treatment of child maltreatment cases. Yet, little is known about either the extent to which the courts currently use kin resources or the determinants of utilization. Using data from a representative sample (N=210) of North Carolina child protection cases, estimates were made of the degree to which kin were utilized by the courts. Next, a multivariate predictive model of the determinants of kin utilization was developed. In this context, two hypotheses related to kin utilization were tested. It was found that the courts ordered kin involvement in the disposition of 62% of all cases. Eleven variables were found to significantly influence the use of kinship resources in these cases. Several of the independent variables in the model are policy relevant and their implications are discussed in the paper's conclusion.     

The Rise of Homeschooling Regulation in the Era of School Choice: Legislative and Judicial Trends, 1972–2009

Over the past four decades, states have increasingly regulated the practice of homeschooling. It is unclear, however, what initial conditions prompt states to regulate and whether states use the legislative or judicial system to do so. Using event history analyses, we identify how state-level political dynamics, social movement mobilization, and educational policies have shaped the timing of pertinent regulatory efforts by courts and state legislatures. Interestingly, predicting the timing of initial government court successes regarding homeschooling regulation is a different story from the one about the conditions that facilitate early adoption of homeschooling legislation. We show that homeschooling legislation reflects state-level educational, diffusion, and social movement dynamics. In contrast, early regulation via the courts is primarily determined by diffusion, and not by educational or social movement dynamics. Courts are both leading and lagging indicators of homeschooling regulation, because courts react to legislation and vice versa. In contrast, homeschooling legislation tends to be purely a lagging indicator, enacted largely in response to court decisions and in light of highly contentious school-choice and accountability-related policies.     

The Impact of Parental Incapacity as an Adoption Cause on the Termination of Parental Rights: An Analysis of Court Decisions

Based on an analysis of 261 court decisions, the study demonstrates how the addition of a “parental incapacity” clause as grounds for termination of parental rights (TPR) in Israeli law affected the decision-making process. Specifically, the study examines how the legal reasoning, the rate of TPR rulings, and the type of cases presented to the courts changed following the introduction of the new clause. Less emphasis on parents’ rights was found as opposed to greater emphasis on parental social normativity and a higher rate of TPR rulings based on “parental incapacity.” These findings and their implications are discussed.     

CONTESTED PORTRAYALS: Medical and Legal Social Control of Juvenile Sex Offenders

While juvenile courts were originally designed to respond to troubled youth by providing treatment appropriate to the needs of individual offenders, advocates of a system that "gets tough" on young criminals by meting out punishments based on offense characteristics (both present offense and past offense history) have become increasingly influential in recent years. In this article, I examine a special case, that of juvenile sex offenders in a Washington State county. for whom a 1990 law reintroduced treatment as a central goal. While Washington has been a forerunner in the shift toward a juvenile justice system in which offending behavior is the central factor in decision making, I argue that, largely as a result of this law, juvenile sex offending has been "medicalized" and that, in this process, distinctions based on offense characteristics have noticeably diminished. This case study provides both empirical support for established theoretical arguments regarding medicalization and a detailed explication of the differences between medical and legal assumptions about social problems.     

THE ORGANIZATION AND CONSEQUENCES OF SOCIAL PASTS IN CRIMINAL COURTS

This article demonstrates the contributions of Katovich and Couch's (1992) formal theory of social pasts to conceptualizations of social world contexts and processual order (Strauss 1978; 1993). Using interview and observational data from three criminal courts, I focus on the interrelationship of two social world contextual features: (1) the organization of participants' social pasts, and (2) the degree of ideological consensus between participants in terms of sentencing goals. These two factors interact to influence interorganizational relationships in the three courts; and, in combination with individual criminal case characteristics, influence actors' case processing strategies. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the organization of social pasts in criminal courts and organizational arenas in general for the availability and attractiveness of alternative action strategies, as well as the management of uncertainty in organizational decision making. I also suggest several directions for further research.     

Drug Courts and the Logic of Coerced Treatment1

This article examines the social and historical significance of coerced drug treatment within the criminal justice system. Drug courts, the most prominent example of this approach, serve as a case study to explore how seemingly contradictory perspectives on substance use—therapeutic and punitive—are merged to justify increased criminal justice oversight of defendants in the name of facilitating recovery. Drawing on an analysis of drug court organizational documents and interviews with key advocates, this article (1) examines the punitive, therapeutic, and medical knowledge drug court advocates draw on and construct to justify an increased role for the courts in solving the problem of addiction, and (2) links these theories historically to broader discussions about the causes of crime and the courts’ role in solving social problems. Overall, this article considers how scientific theories are fused with moral considerations in the name of an “enlightened” criminal justice approach to complex social problems.     

The Localized Uses of Federal Sentencing Guidelines in Four U.S. District Courts: Evidence of Processual Order

The federal criminal justice system applies a single set of federal statutes and identical rules of procedure in a variety of local district jurisdictions. It is an underexplored research setting rich with potential to advance our theoretical understanding of how important sociological and political processes work. In particular, the sentencing and case processing practices of federal district courts are governed by the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which are in part supposed to impose uniformity and predictability in federal criminal sentencing. Guided by a processual order perspective that views courts as communities with their own distinct organizational culture, practices, and relationships, I explore the localized meaning and uses of key provisions of the sentencing guidelines, such as guideline departures for “substantial assistance” to law enforcement, sentence reductions for “acceptance of responsibility,” and the role of federal probation presentence reports. Data for this study come from field interviews with federal prosecutors, judges, public and private defense attorneys, and probation officers in four U.S. District Courts. I supplement these interview data with quantitative sentencing data that show substantial variation in criminal punishment between these four courts. I argue that federal criminal courts, like state courts, are best conceptualized as communities with distinctive processual orders.