Sentencing to Therapy

Abstract While it may be wise to deflect drug and other substance abusers away from prison, the practice of coercing them to submit to programs of therapy via the threat of penal sanction is questionable because doing so lies outside the proper realm of criminal justice, as currently defined, and may be unethical in terms of the right of individuals to be protected from capricious judicial practices. It may also be impractical from the standpoint of successful treatment. On the other hand, it is probably also true that few substance abusers would submit to treatment without being explicitly threatened by the punitive consequences of their behavior. It is, therefore, a serious question of public policy—how to balance the conflicting goals of societal protection, individual rights and individual health. Three policy modifications are herein identified and discussed: (1) make sentences to therapy an explicit provision in criminal law, (2) completely divorce the punitive and rehabilitative responses to crimin...