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Drug Courts are a fundamental change to trial courts. They are considered less adversarial and may alter past notions of treatment for offenders. One goal of drug courts is to provide defendants the opportunity to alter their drug-addicted lifestyles through intense supervision, feedback, treatment, and graduated sanctions and rewards for behavior. This study uses logistic regression to examine measures of failure such as termination from drug court and two measures of offender recidivism. Although the literature on drug courts has been developing for several years, the reality is that universal templates for explanation do not yet exist in the juvenile arena. This paper examines correlates that explain the above measures of failure. The study also proposes the creation of new measures that may assist future research. Findings indicate that participant experiences within the drug court program are the strongest predictors of termination and recidivism. Keywords: drug courts; recidivism; juvenile; failure; therapeutic jurisprudence

Whether crime trends have significantly changed over the past decade is less important than the general inclination to adopt policies that increase arrest potential, promote longer enhanced sentences, and eliminate traditional parole practices. Such strategies are often adopted without considering their effects on an already exhausted criminal justice resource: prisons. Using a common pool resources approach ordinarily employed in economic and biologic research to investigate the potential depletion of resources that are held in common, the authors examine the use of and estimate the actual needs for prison space by the county-level sentencing authorities in a southwestern state. Results suggest that the actions of a few jurisdictions within the state significantly affect the overuse of prison as a sentencing alternative. The authors examine the significance of such findings for future research as well as potential policy alternatives that may incorporate the concept of prison as a common pool resource.

Presents abstracts on studies dealing with the conditions of criminals in prison. Ethnic differences and gender relations of juvenile delinquents in prison; Examination and estimation of the actual need for prison space by the country-level sentencing authorities in a southwestern United States.