Description
Book SynopsisExamines not only how therapeutic strategies deviate from traditional judiciary proceedings, but also how these differences reflect changes afoot in American culture and conceptions of justice. This work analyzes a different type of courtroom drama in which the judge engages directly and regularly with the defendant-turned-client.
Trade Review"Beautifully written... Those involved with drug courts in any capacity and all those concerned with criminal law, the philosophy of punishment, or changing conceptions of justice in contemporary America will welcome this book."--Harvard Law Review "[In this] first full-length study of drug courts... Nolan recounts an engaging story and provides a penetrating analysis contrasting the styles of therapeutic and conventional notions of justice... Sociologists, political scientists, and criminologists interested in treatment, 'alternative' programming, and the judicial process should read this fine study."--Choice "An excellent book. It is a traditional ethnography in the best sense of the term... Well-organized, cleverly situated in the relevant legal, historical, and sociological literatures, and written with appealing clarity."--John M. Conley, American Journal of Sociology "Reinventing Justice establishes a benchmark for work that will inevitably follow...The author's objectivity distinguishes this book from the promotional and the evaluative literature on drug court. Nolan's account of the evaluation literature is one of the best that I have read."--Drew Humphries, Contemporary Sociology "Nolan's book is a detailed and well-written account of drug courts and his method is well suited for the story he tells... [He] makes valuable contributions to our understanding of how the therapeutic ideal ... is actually put into practice."--Jason Schnittker, Social Forces "Reinventing Justice describes, in fine ethnographic detail, what Nolan saw and heard in countless hours of observation and interviews with drug court judges... Extraordinarily illuminating."--Contexts "[Nolan] convincingly situates drug courts as a social movement and illustrates their success as such. This is an important book for scholars of the drug court movement. It forces us to consider the broader cultural meanings and implications for facilitating therapy through courtroom machinery. It critically juxtaposes the underlying assumptions of therapeutic jurisprudence against conventional frames of justice and raises important questions about the implications."--Corey J. Colyer, International Criminal Justice Review
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 3 1. Drugs and Law: An Historical Perspective 15 2. The Drup Court Movement 39 3. Therapeutic Theater 61 4. The Un-Common Law 90 5. Drug Court Storytelling 111 6. The Pathological Shift 133 7. The Meaning of Justice 155 8. Reinventing Justice 185 Notes 209 Selected References 241 Index 249
