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vii Preface and Acknowledgments The idea for this book began before I started graduate school. In the mid1990s I worked at a nonprofit legal organization that designed, implemented, and evaluated drug courts and other problem-solving courts. I saw the value of these courts—helping offenders kick their drug addiction, keeping them out of prison—but I also worried about the courts’ potential Big Brother impact on the offenders with their expectations of behavioral change. As I was discussing these thoughts with a senior staff member who had been involved in criminal justice policy for twenty years, she responded that while it sounded like we were imposing white middle-class values onto poor minorities, nothing else had worked. I still think about that conversation often—namely, if these courts do help to keep people out of jail or prison, are their moralistic expectations of behavior worth it, especially considering the experience of policy practitioners who have seen countless other attempts at reform fail? I went to graduate school to explore that question but then was confronted with another equally confounding one. I was trying to defend my coworker’s view of drug courts to a faculty member, who asked the following question, which I’m paraphrasing here: “While the courts’ goals are honorable, wouldn’t it be better to spend the money on improving our decaying schools, building affordable housing, and increasing the number of jobs?” In other words, we should be addressing the social problems that policy makers acknowledged were often the root causes for the crimes committed by the offenders entering these specialized courts, instead of focusing on those individuals to change their behaviors. Those two questions explain the impetus for this book—how can we understand drug courts from both the practical policy view and the broader sociological perspective? How can I straddle the lines between the two audiences without forsaking the analysis? It means that I need to question the ideological premises of drug courts of accountability and therapeutic jurisprudence without accepting them at face value. Yet, at the same time, I do not want to reduce drug courts to being Orwellian expansions of social control over docile bodies of drug offenders without also raising the possible practical value in such courts. In short, I have attempted to validate the efforts of the drug court staff members, who are tirelessly dedicated to “doing good,” while also questioning the iatrogenic effect that their efforts can produce. My hope is that policy makers will come away from this book with a newfound perspective about the unintended consequences of these courts and the courage not to jump on board any reform train that appears to work. I equally hope that academics will see how debunking policy reforms is not a helpful approach to rectifying the social inequalities created by the contemporary justice system. Over the years, many people have helped me develop and think through the ideas presented in this book. First and foremost, my mentor since graduate school, Robert Emerson, has been unswerving in his support and willingness to read draft after draft. Working with him has been a privilege, as it has taught me how to be a better ethnographer and scholar. He pushed me to push myself, to constantly question the validity of my claims and the ever important connection to the data. The late Melvin Pollner also provided invaluable guidance during the dissertation phase of this project. I fondly remember our long conversations about the theoretical implications of my work, bolstered with a healthy dose of humor and laughter. I also want to thank my fellow graduate students, specifically Sal Zerilli and Julie Peggar, in the social control working group that helped move the dissertation writing along. Finally, my dear friends and colleagues, Alexes Harris, Nikki Jones, Carla Shedd, and L’Heureux Lewis, read later versions of the manuscript as it evolved from the dissertation stage. I could not have finished this manuscript without the wonderful support of the Ohio State University Crime and Justice Summer Research Institute. My time there gave me an extra push at the final stage when all I wanted to do was throw the manuscript in a drawer. Special thanks to Laurie Krivo, Ruth Peterson, Steve Lopez, Aaron Kupchik, and the other participants in the 2009 SRI cohort. I’m forever grateful to Marlie Wasserman and Peter Mickulas at Rutgers University Press for their immediate enthusiasm and support for the book, as well as the anonymous reviewers who provided wonderfully...

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