Is it NICE? The Appeal, Limits and Promise of Translating a Health Innovation into Criminal Justice

Extract

Introduction

What can criminal justice learn from ways of thinking and doing things in the field of health and medicine? There are, of course, several means of approaching this question and addressing the issues it raises: one can examine the use and application of randomized control trials in each domain; or the interface between mental health and criminal justice systems; or the emergence of drugs courts and what has been termed ‘therapeutic jurisprudence’. One can ask whether the close connection between drug and alcohol addiction and crime offers a good reason to re-frame and respond to the ‘criminal question’ under the rubric of public health; or whether to revive interest in the once dominant but today rather discredited idea that offenders should be treated rather than punished. One might even think metaphorically about crime as a sickness, disease or pathology, or about the relationship between over-consumption and demands for punishment.