ABSTRACT

Problem-solving courts are courts that oversee specialized dockets of participants who have comparable underlying causes which have prompted their entrance into the criminal justice system (e.g., substance abuse or mental health issues). Through their use of evidence-based practices, including treatment options and the use of risk-need-responsivity models, problem-solving courts aim to identify court participants who are at high risk for re-offending and in critical need of rehabilitative services. However, in their manuscript titled A Criminological Fly in the Ointment: Specialty Courts and the Generality of Deviance, Pratt and Turanovic make several incorrect claims regarding these types of courts. Specifically, the authors claim that problem-solving courts operate under the ideology that court participants are specialists when it comes to their offending, they aim to increase speed of processing cases through the criminal justice system, and that they do not utilize evidence-based practices. This reply aims to correct these claims and concludes with a brief discussion of current issues that these types of courts face moving forward.

摘要

问题解决法庭是负责监督具有类似潜在原因并促使他们进入刑事司法系统（例如，药物滥用或心理健康问题）的参与者的专门案卷的法庭。通过使用循证实践，包括治疗方案和风险-需求-响应模型的使用，问题解决法庭旨在识别重犯风险高且急需康复服务的法庭参与者。然而，在他们题为“美中不足的犯罪学：专业法庭和偏差的普遍性”的手稿中、普拉特和图拉诺维奇对这些类型的法院提出了一些错误的主张。具体而言，作者声称，解决问题的法院在法院参与者是犯罪专家的意识形态下运作，他们旨在通过刑事司法系统提高处理案件的速度，并且他们不使用基于证据的做法. 本答复旨在纠正这些主张，并以对此类法院未来面临的当前问题的简要讨论结束。