ABSTRACT

Drug courts have been part of the criminal justice system for over 30 years. A plethora of quantitative quasi-experimental, experimental, and meta-analytic studies have demonstrated their effectiveness at promoting recovery from substance use disorders and reducing criminal recidivism. Qualitative studies, however, are less common and little is known about specific populations that drug courts serve, such as women. To our knowledge, this is the first qualitative interpretive meta-synthesis (QIMS) of women’s experiences in drug court (n = 79). The QIMS resulted in four new, overarching themes related to (1) receiving praise, compassion and encouragement from the judge and counseling staff; (2) promotion of parenting skills and improvement of mother-child relationships; (3) receiving gender-specific services addressing co-occurring mental health and trauma issues; and (4) continuous performance monitoring, including drug testing, which held participants accountable for their conduct while promoting gradual development of intrinsic motivation for change. Implications for drug court practice and future research are discussed.

摘要

30 多年来，毒品法庭一直是刑事司法系统的一部分。大量的定量准实验、实验和荟萃分析研究证明了它们在促进从物质使用障碍中恢复和减少犯罪累犯方面的有效性。然而，定性研究不太常见，对毒品法庭服务的特定人群（例如女性）知之甚少。据我们所知，这是女性在毒品法庭（n = 79）经历的第一个定性解释性综合综合（QIMS）。QIMS 产生了四个新的总体主题，这些主题与 (1) 获得法官和咨询人员的表扬、同情和鼓励有关；(2) 提升育儿技巧，改善母子关系；(3) 接受针对同时发生的心理健康和创伤问题的针对性别的服务；(4) 持续的绩效监控，包括药物测试，让参与者对自己的行为负责，同时促进内在变革动机的逐渐发展。讨论了对毒品法庭实践和未来研究的影响。