Examining Mental Health Court Completion: A Focal Concerns Perspective

Sociologists have long-raised concern about disparate treatment in the justice system. Focal concerns have become the dominant perspective in explaining these disparities in legal processing decisions. Despite the growth of problem-solving courts, little research has examined how this perspective op...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Dollar, Cindy Brooks (Author)
Corporate Author: NC DOCKS at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Author)
Format: Electronic Book
Language:English
Published: 2013
In:Year: 2013
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Description
Summary:Sociologists have long-raised concern about disparate treatment in the justice system. Focal concerns have become the dominant perspective in explaining these disparities in legal processing decisions. Despite the growth of problem-solving courts, little research has examined how this perspective operates in nontraditional court settings. This article used a mixed-method approach to examine focal concerns in a mental health court (MHC). Observational findings indicate that gender and length of time in court influence the court's contextualization of noncompliance. While discussions of race were absent in observational data, competing-risk survival analysis finds that gender and race interact to predict MHC termination