Judging addicts : drug courts and coercion in the justice system / Rebecca Tiger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tiger, Rebecca.

Series:

Alternative criminology series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Drug courts--United States.

Drug courts.

Duress (Law).

United States.

Duress (Law)--United States.

Drug abuse--Treatment--Law and legislation--United States.

Drug abuse.

Drug abuse--Treatment--Law and legislation.

Drug addicts--Legal status, laws, etc--United States.

Drug addicts.

Drug addicts--Legal status, laws, etc.

Physical Description:

x, 198 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2013]

Summary:

The number of people incarcerated in the U.S. now exceeds 2.3 million, due in part to the increasing criminalization of drug use: over 25% of people incarcerated in jails and prisons are there for drug offenses. Judging Addicts examines this increased criminalization of drugs and the medicalization of addiction in the U.S. by focusing on drug courts, where defendants are sent to drug treatment instead of prison. Rebecca Tiger explores how advocates of these courts make their case for what they call "enlightened coercion," detailing how they use medical theories of addiction to justify increased criminal justice oversight of defendants who, through this process, are defined as both "sick" and "bad."

Tiger shows how these courts fuse punitive and therapeutic approaches to drug use in the name of a "progressive" approach to addiction, all the while expanding punitive control over drag users. Ultimately, she argues that the medicalization of addiction has done little to stem the punishment of drug users because of a key conceptual overlap in the medical and disciplinary approaches-that habitual drug use is a problem that needs to be fixed through sobriety. Pressing policymakers to implement humane responses to persistent substance abuse free from the control of the criminal justice system, Judging Addicts provocatively explores the nature of crime and punishment in the U.S. today. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Both Bad and Sick 15

2 Criminalizing Deviance: Reconciling the Punitive and Rehabilitative 41

3 "The Right Thing to Do for the Right Reasons": The Institutional Context for the Emergence of Drug Courts 58

4 "Enlightened Coercion": Making Coercion Work 73

5 "Force Is the Best Medicine": Addiction, Recovery, and Coercion 88

6 "Now That We Know the Medicine Works": Expanding the Drug Court Model 115.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-182) and index.

ISBN:

9780814784068

0814784062

9780814784075

0814784070

9780814759417

0814759416

9780814785966

0814785964

OCLC:

780483669