ABSTRACT
The rapid spread of Drug Treatment Courts (DTCs) to jurisdictions across the country indicates a new direction for the nation in terms of solving the problems of drug use and drug-related crime. Concerns about the expansion of DTCs have been voiced both by those who see DTCs as a return to the rehabilitative ideal of the fifties, sixties, and early seventies and by those who fear that DTCs are "soft on crime." The chapter will demonstrate that these fears are either exaggerated or unfounded. DTCs represent a rational and effective means of breaking the vicious cycle of drug use and drug-related crime. The deterrence theory of criminal punishment is based on the utilitarian principle that the moral justification for any action should depend on whether or not that action increases total human happiness more than it subtracts from that happiness. Therapeutic jurisprudence reasoning and analysis need not predominate over other societal values or priorities.
