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Specialty Courts

Name

Institution

Instructor

Course

Date
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We are talking about the Juvenile Drug Treatment Court (JDTC), which differs from the

usual youth court system. The action plan for JDTCs is doing community-based substance use

treatment services, which includes sending people to community-based substance use treatment

services from their local community. This plan works best in JDTCs because it matches the goals

of helping and healing these courts aim for. JDTCs are all about dealing with special issues faced

by young people who use drugs and those in trouble with the law. These needs must be

considered thoughtfully as they grow up.

The plan to help young people includes checking their special crime risks and needs and

having regular talks between the youth and a judge or court worker. It also involves close

watching, changing how they behave by rewarding good behavior and punishing bad actions, as

well as sending them for treatment of drug use in community services if needed. This

comprehensive approach is tailored to help involved young people, and it's very different from

usual youth courts, which usually depend on punishing young offenders to stop them from

making bad choices.

The JDTC model is supposed to last 12-18 months and provides services such as hearing

status with a judge, organizing family issues, and drug testing at random times. It also watches

over the youth in their community and helps those who need special treatment programs for

substance use problems. These evidence-based services align with the rules given by the Office

of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). These rules stress dealing with drug

use. They also focus on ensuring everyone gets treated fairly, including all team members. They

also check to see each person's needs using methods that work well for people who do bad things

once they know how to fix them properly and watch program ending or stopping decisions

closely.
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The effectiveness of this strategy is backed up by a study by Tanner‐Smith et al. (2023)

that shows JDTCs have small good results on common misbehavior during control supervised in

court. The important use of treatments based on facts and the special ways to meet the different

needs of teens in trouble with the law help make JDTCs successful. The study also shows how

important it is to sign up young people for programs and give them services that match their

treatment needs so JDTCs work well. Even though there might be problems like bad program

setup, the way JDTC fixes things works well if done as planned. This can help reduce crime and

drug use rates when youth finish this plan uneventfully.

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Reference

Tanner‐Smith, E. E., Mojekwu, F., & Frankel, L. (2023). Examining the Effects of Juvenile Drug

Treatment Courts: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Criminal Justice and

Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1177/00938548231208208