Evelyn Malavé (Hofstra University), Distorted Narratives in the Treatment Program Complex, Fordham L. Rev. (forthcoming 2024):
Problem-solving courts and alternatives to incarceration have been both celebrated as successful attempts to address the factors that lead to defendants’ involvement in the criminal legal system, and critiqued as ineffective reforms that worsen mass incarceration. Specifically, critiques of the “treatment program complex” have tended to focus on how it harms defendants by exposing them to higher levels of incarceration if they fail to complete court mandates. But these critiques have failed to account for another way the treatment program complex harms defendants: by suppressing their voices regarding what kind of help they need and how they are affected by court policies.