Traditionally, judges and other members of the justice system have ignored the underlying disease of addiction when dealing with criminal defendants or family/juvenile court litigants. Court professionals were not equipped, trained, or inclined to be social workers or treatment providers. Treatment and recovery itself was considered either "inappropriate in the court setting" or, in the criminal law context, "soft on crime." Few if any understood or acknowledged the relationship between addiction and criminal behavior. The fact that it is ludicrous to send alcoholics or other addicts to jail or prison without the opportunity for treatment was not addressed. The embarrassment of confronting a person's addiction was too much for the court system and, despite the preponderance of evidence of chronic substance abuse available in police reports or probation memos, intervention in the legal system was deemed a matter of personal health and beyond the scope of adjudication.