Ebook: Criminal artefacts: governing drugs and users

Attitudes toward crime, criminals, and rehabilitation have shifted considerably, yet the idea that there is a causal link between drug addiction and crime prevails. As law reformers call for addiction treatment as a remedy to the failing war on drugs, it is also time to consider the serious implications of joining legal and therapeutic practices in an assumedly benevolent bid to cure the offender. Case studies from drug treatment courts and addiction treatment programs illustrate the tensions between law and psychology, treatment and punishment, and conflicting theories of addiction. By looking curiously on the criminal addict as an artefact of criminal justice, this book asks us to question why the criminalized drug user has become such a focus of contemporary criminal justice practices.