Specialty courts : current issues and future prospects

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 317

ISBN 1 921185 11 2 ISSN 0817-8542
Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, June 2006

Abstract

Specialty courts, designed to tackle specific problem behaviour and associated issues, have been adopted by policy-makers and criminal justice practitioners as a means of tackling crime related to drug dependency and mental health, reducing the over-representation of Indigenous offenders and reducing the incidence of domestic violence. This paper examines the history and development of the specialty court concept in Australia. It shows that the programs, although having the same overall aim of reducing reoffending, have significantly different structures as they attempt to deal with very different problems. Case studies include drug courts, mental impairment courts, family and domestic violence courts, and Indigenous courts. This paper also reviews the key evaluations of specialty court programs conducted to date.