Drug Court as Both a Legal and Medical Authority
This article explores how addiction is conceptualized in a drug court program. Through observations and interviews in a drug court in a large northeastern city, the author reveals how the court uses ambiguous and inconsistent medicalized language to describe addiction, extending the label of addiction to behaviors not just associated with using drugs, but with selling drugs as well. Ultimately, drug courts incorporate a medicalized notion of addiction to further their own control over drug-related issues, since they become the authority of both the client's treatment and their punishment.
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: Department of Sociology, California State University, Sacramento, California, USA
Publication date: 01 March 2011
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