ABSTRACT
Specialty Courts, also known as problem-solving courts or therapeutic courts, are criminal courts that attempt to divert specific types of offenders out of further involvement in the criminal justice system, by linking them into community-based treatments or services designed to address the underlying causes of these offenders' criminal behavior. Specialty courts generally operate under a separate docket from traditional courts and develop policies and procedures that the court operates by, but also expectations for defendants who opt into the process. In developing these policies and procedures, the specialty court model must also develop a team that generally consists of a judge, criminal justice personnel, and community-based treatment or service providers. Drug courts are the most common of all specialty courts, yet there is a myriad of specialty court typologies that focus on specific types of offenses or offenders. The vast majority of empirical research on specialty courts has focused on the goal of increasing public safety by reducing criminal activity.
