Edmonton Drug Treatment & Community Restoration Court

“Therapeutic jurisprudence is the "study of the role of the law as a therapeutic agent." . . . It focuses on the law's impact on emotional life and on psychological well-being.  . . . Basically, therapeutic jurisprudence is a perspective that regards the law as a social force that produces behaviors and consequences. . . . When we say the law, we mean the law in action, not simply the law on the books. The law can be divided into the following categories:

“More recently, it looks like there are certain kinds of rehabilitative programs and packages, particularly the cognitive/behavioral variety, that look rather promising. One type of these cognitive behavioral treatments encourages offenders to think through the chain of events that lead to criminality and then tries to get the offenders to stop and think in advance. This will enable an offender to figure out two things: (1) what are the high risk situations, in my case, for criminality or juvenile delinquency; and (2) how can the high risk situations be avoided, or how can the situations be coped with if they arise?

 

“These situations may be things such as realizing you are very much at risk on Friday nights after having partied with such and such person. The offender may decide that he or she shouldn't go out Friday nights. This determination is a way of avoiding high risk behaviors. Instead of going out on Friday night with Joe and getting into trouble, the offender may choose to stay home. But what happens the next night when Joe calls or what happens when Joe knocks on the offender's door?

 

“Therapists have developed approaches of working with these issues, and of having offenders prepare relapse prevention plans. There are also certain programs, like "reasoning and rehabilitation" type programs, that teach offenders cognitive self change, to stop and think and figure out consequences, to anticipate high risk situations, and to learn to avoid and cope with them.

 

“These programs seem to be reasonably successful. One of the issues that I am interested in now, from a therapeutic jurisprudence standpoint, is how this might be brought into the law. In one obvious sense, these problem-solving, reasoning and rehabilitation type of programs can be made widely available in correctional and community settings. A way of linking them even more to the law, of course, would be to say that as a condition of probation or parole, one might have to attend or complete one of these courses.

 

“A more subtle way of thinking about this in therapeutic jurisprudence terms, however, is to ask how reasoning and rehabilitation can be made part of the legal process itself. The suggestion here is that if a judge or parole board becomes familiar with these techniques and is about to consider someone for probation, the judge might say, "I'm going to consider you but I want you to come up with a type of preliminary plan that we will use as a basis of discussion. I want you to figure out why I should grant you probation and why I should be comfortable that you're going to succeed. In order for me to feel comfortable, I need to know what you regard to be high risk situations and how you're going to avoid them or cope with them."

 

“If that approach is followed, courts will be promoting cognitive self-charge as part and parcel of the sentencing process itself. The process may operate this way: "I realize I mess up on Friday nights; therefore, I propose that I will stay home Friday nights." Suddenly, it is not a judge imposing something on you. It's something you are coming up with so you should think it is fair. You have a voice in it, and presumably your compliance with this condition will also be better.”

 

Professor Wexler gave an address at the CADTC 2006 Conference, and is now in contact with the EDTCRC and its supporters.