for drug offenders. From a clinical perspective, for many individual addicts and alcoholics, the criminal justice system provides not just the best but sometimes the only opportunity for intervention. This is certainly the biggest strength of drug courts in that they actively address a problem and seek viable solutions û a process incarceration cannot possible do. Incarceration removes drug offenders from society for a period, but during that time, it does not û indeed cannot û work with them so they do not become repeat offenders. The drug courts seek to do precisely that.
However, the law and justice community shows a great deal of skepticism about drug and alcohol treatment. Many judges, probation, and parole officers have come to view conventional treatment simply as another "revolving door" with very low success rates for those they have referred. Many treatment providers prefer clients that have come to them of their own free will, rather than those forced by legal mandates. As well, many clinicians hold the view that successful treatment requires that clients be self-motivated.
Many of the historical problems with criminal justice mandated treatment derive from the fact that law enforcement and the medical and treatment community have traditionally labored under conflicting definitions of alcoholism and drug addiction. The medical community has long accepted the disease of addiction as a chronic relapsing disorder in which recovery is typically achieved only through a process of success and relapse. Indeed, clinical experience shows that the addict or alcoholic who smoothly proceeds from use to non-use in a single, initial treatment is extremely rare.
While individual judges, probation, or parole officers may be personally aware of this relapsing nature of typical early recovery, the criminal justice system itself has not been able to tolerate relapse because its duty is not to bring about recovery, but to preve...