Issues in the Law: Problem-Solving Courts
Advocacy Program Seminar
Spring 2007
Professor Mae C. Quinn
In the last twenty years, over 2,000 specialized “problem-solving” courts -- drug treatment, mental health, and community courts and more -- have opened across the United States. This explosion in specialty venues for handling criminal prosecutions has been referred to as the “problem-solving court movement.” Throughout the country, practitioners, judges, and academics are studying, writing about, and discussing this recent phenomenon -- grappling with its merits and implications.
During the 2007 spring semester, a curious group of University of Tennessee College of Law students participated in a new course offering through our Advocacy Program –- Issues in the Law: Problem-Solving Courts. In doing so, they sought to add their voices to the debate about these experiments in justice. The students surveyed the various types of specialty courts that have been established in this country, analyzed their particularized features and functions, and compared them to other criminal courts, past and present. Through their in-class study and individual research they explored the potential legal and ethical issues presented by “problem-solving” courts along with other justice system implications, including the future of such institutions in this country.
Links to sample abstracts of their projects and contributions to the “problem-solving courts” dialogue are provided below (click title to access abstract):
Jessica Antonucci
Police-Based Diversion Programs as an Effective Response to America 's Mental Health Crisis
Lillian Blackshear
What's Black and White and Green All Over?: Using the Problem-Solving Approach of Environmental Courts to Stop Environmental Racism
Will Caldwell
The Implications of Defining Communities: A Comparative Analysis of Bogan v. Bonner
Holly Cooper
Restructuring Juvenile Courts: Applying the Problem-Solving Model to Juvenile Court to Provide Children Constitutional Protection Without Sacrificing Rehabilitation
Jennifer DeAlejandro
Youth Courts: One Size Does Not Fit All
Fermin DeLaTorre
Stopping the Ice Flow: The Need for Methamphetamine Only Drug Courts to Solve the Methamphetamine Epidemic
Robert Draughton
Drug Courts and the Balance of Coerciveness
Kathryn Evans
The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions: Why Problem-Solving Courts Aren't the Best Response to a Society's Problems and Why Attorneys Should Adopt the Holistic Advocacy Model
Katherine Fussell
A Social Learning Evaluation of Community Courts: Changing Perception, Not Reality
Allison Harris
Environmental Courts: Are They A Good Method of Handling Non-Compliance With Environmental Codes?
Whitney Quarles
South Carolina Mental Health Courts: Legislative Overreaction
Adam Ruf
Modern Mental Health Courts: A Step Backward?
Leslie Shaffer
In-House Counseling: Assessing the Benefits of Court-Run Inpatient Treatment Facilities for Drug Court Participants
Jenney Springer
The Missing Link: Judicial Involvement in Juvenile Aftercare Programs
Joe Viglione
Some Thoughts on Sentencing in Problem Solving Courts
Wendy Walker
American Exceptionalism: The Prohibition Against Narcotics and Our Addiction to Drug Courts
For information about this course or the students' work, contact Professor Mae C. Quinn at mquinn3@utk.edu or (865) 974-6772.
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