TY - JOUR
T1 - Maybe he's depressed
T2 - Mental illness as a mitigating factor for drug offender accountability
AU - Paik, Leslie
PY - 2009/6
Y1 - 2009/6
N2 - Given the often perplexing relationship between mental illness and substance abuse among offenders, this article looks at how a juvenile drug court staff's presumptions of a youth's mental illness affect its decision-making process. Based on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork at a Southern California juvenile drug court, this article uses Manzo and Travers's "law in action" approach to analyze how the staff readjusts its application of normal remedies (a concept developed by Robert Emerson) designed to respond to a youth's noncompliance when it suspects mental illness may be influencing the youth's actions. In doing so, it highlights how court staff's considerations of youth mental disorders arise out of its everyday work practices. Furthermore, the article discusses how staff negotiations around a youth's mental illness create tensions for the juvenile drug court's accountability-based model of therapeutic jurisprudence, because assessments of mental illness tend to mitigate responsibility for a youth's behavior.
AB - Given the often perplexing relationship between mental illness and substance abuse among offenders, this article looks at how a juvenile drug court staff's presumptions of a youth's mental illness affect its decision-making process. Based on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork at a Southern California juvenile drug court, this article uses Manzo and Travers's "law in action" approach to analyze how the staff readjusts its application of normal remedies (a concept developed by Robert Emerson) designed to respond to a youth's noncompliance when it suspects mental illness may be influencing the youth's actions. In doing so, it highlights how court staff's considerations of youth mental disorders arise out of its everyday work practices. Furthermore, the article discusses how staff negotiations around a youth's mental illness create tensions for the juvenile drug court's accountability-based model of therapeutic jurisprudence, because assessments of mental illness tend to mitigate responsibility for a youth's behavior.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=68749085156&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1111/j.1747-4469.2009.01158.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1747-4469.2009.01158.x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:68749085156
SN - 0897-6546
VL - 34
SP - 569
EP - 602
JO - Law and Social Inquiry
JF - Law and Social Inquiry
IS - 3
ER -