Law Commons^™

Problem-Solving Courts And The Outcome Oversight Gap, Erin R. Collins

UMKC Law Review

The creation of a specialized, “problem-solving” court is a ubiquitous response to the issues that plague our criminal legal system. The courts promise to address the factors believed to lead to repeated interactions with the system, such as addiction or mental illness, thereby reducing recidivism and saving money. And they do so effectively – at least according to their many proponents, who celebrate them as an example of a successful “evidence-based,” data-driven reform. But the actual data on their efficacy is underwhelming, inconclusive, or altogether lacking. So why do they persist?

This Article seeks to answer that question by scrutinizing …

Mental Health Courts And Sentencing Disparities, E. Lea Johnston, Conor P. Flynn

UF Law Faculty Publications

Despite the proliferation of mental health courts across the United States, virtually no attention has been paid to the criminal justice effects these courts carry for participants. This article provides the first empirical analysis of differential sentencing practices in mental health and traditional criminal courts. Using a case study approach, the article compares how Pennsylvania’s Erie County Mental Health Court and county criminal courts sentenced individuals who committed the same offenses and held the same average criminal history score. Information on the mental health court—including eligibility criteria, plea bargaining and sentencing procedure, sentencing policies, program length, graduation rates, likelihood of …

People With Secrets: Contesting, Constructing, And Resisting Women’S Claims About Sexualized Victimization, Rose Corrigan, Corey S. Shdaimah

Catholic University Law Review

What do sexual assault victims and women charged with prostitution have in common? Both are processed through a criminal justice system where legal actors assess their claims of victimization and either provide or deny resources and recognition in response to those claims. Ideal victim theory posits that not all victims’ claims are treated equally due to static factors such as personal characteristics or case facts. Professor Corrigan and Professor Shdaimah present the Arena of Intelligibility, an original analytical tool developed from their empirical data, to more effectively explain case outcomes for women affected by sexual crimes.

The Arena explains criminal …

Flawed Coalitions And The Politics Of Crime, David Jaros

All Faculty Scholarship

Bipartisanship can be dangerous. In the late 1970s, liberal and conservative forces united to discard two centuries of federal sentencing practice and usher in an era of fixed guidelines that would reshape the criminal justice landscape. In the decades that followed, liberals would come to bitterly regret their alliance with conservative sentencing reformers. The guideline regime established by the Sentencing Reform Act ultimately advanced hardline conservative criminal justice goals that were antithetical to the objectives of many of the Act’s former liberal supporters.

Researchers have shown that a particular cognitive bias — cultural cognition — can explain why intense partisan …

Problem-Solving Courts: From Innovation To Institutionalization, Michael C. Dorf, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

The phenomenal growth of drug courts and other forms of "problem-solving" courts has followed a pattern that is characteristic of many successful innovations: An individual or small group has or stumbles upon a new idea; the idea is put into practice and appears to work; a small number of other actors adopt the innovation and have similar experiences; if there is great demand for the innovation – for example, because it responds to a widely-perceived crisis or satisfies an institutional need and resolves tensions within organizations that adopt it – the innovation rapidly diffuses through the networks in which the …