ame time "efforts to reintegrate the defendant back into society" (Miethe 2) Having attended and observed court actions in Miami and Las Vegas, the consensus feels that "the primary goal of these programs us to reduce criminal recidivism and substance abuse among those nonviolent offenders." (Miethe 4)
What this article purports to delineate is whether the "shaming" and "reintegration" efforts in the part of the drug courts tend to cancel one another out. "Shaming that takes the form of stigmatizatio0naemphasizes the labeling of the offender as deviant and pays little attention to delabeling in order to signify forgiveness and reintegration.
Miethe's (et al) study took a sample of 301 defendants in 1995 drug court cases versus a "control" sample from non-drug court cases, with recidivism accounted for only in new court appearances. While there seemed to be a similarity between the two groups in terms of socio-demographic characteristics and the number and nature of the drug charges, "drug-court participants had substantially higher recidivism risks than non-drug court participants." (Miethe 8)
In stating the results, the authors write "Recidivists in 1996 were at least twice as likely to continue their ways across all three mea
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