Rethinking drug courts: Restorative justice as a response to racial injustice
May 28, 2009
From an article by Michael M O'Hear: Drug courts can produce both winners and losers when compared to conventional court processing, and there are good reasons to suspect that black defendants are considerably less likely to benefit from the implementation of a drug court than white defendants. As a result, drug courts may actually exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, racial disparities in the incarceration rate for drug crimes.
Where the drug treatment court gives a dominant role to criminal justice and therapeutic professionals, the community conferencing approach empowers lay community representatives, and is thereby capable of addressing some of the social capital deficits in inner-city minority communities that are associated with the war on drugs.
Download the whole article from here.
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