{"id":269,"date":"2013-11-05T02:14:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T02:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ubaltlawcfcc.wordpress.com\/2013\/11\/05\/the-a-team-an-inside-look-at-the-baltimore-city-drug-treatment-court"},"modified":"2020-08-26T15:43:47","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T15:43:47","slug":"the-a-team-an-inside-look-at-the-baltimore-city-drug-treatment-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/2013\/11\/05\/the-a-team-an-inside-look-at-the-baltimore-city-drug-treatment-court\/","title":{"rendered":"The “A” Team: An Inside Look At The Baltimore City Drug Treatment Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ashley Phillips, CFCC Student Fellow 2013-2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

On October 23, 2013 the CFCC Student Fellows visited the Baltimore City Drug Treatment Court. As we entered the court room, the first thing I noticed was a chalkboard with \u201cThe A Team\u201d written on it. I soon found out what that meant. When a participant remained drug-free and complied with treatment, his or her name would be written on the chalkboard as a member of \u201cThe A Team,\u201d at which point everyone in the courtroom would give a round of applause. I was quite surprised because I had never seen something like this before.<\/p>\n

When the clerk called the case, the Drug Court participant came to the \u201cdefendant\u2019s\u201d table in front of the Judge\u2019s bench. There was one other person sitting next to the participant, and two people sitting at the \u201cplaintiff\u2019s\u201d table.I noticed the informal nature of the interaction between the Drug Court team members. The Judge was extremely friendly, even cheerful, and her positive attitude resulted in a calm atmosphere that is not usually felt in a court room. One member of the Drug Court team gave an update on how the participant had done since his\/her last court appearance. Depending on how long the participant remained drug free and complied with drug treatment, he\/she would progress through several levels of the Drug Court Program, and eventually graduate.<\/p>\n

As I looked around the courtroom, I saw that most of the participants were middle-aged \u00a0African American men. I took note of the disparity in ethnicity and gender, which could be linked to Baltimore\u2019s demographics.\u00a0 As I watched the court administrator write the names of participants on the chalkboard, I wondered what the court did about those who did not make it on \u201cThe A Team.\u201d We found out that those individuals still received encouragement and support.\u00a0 For example, there were a couple of participants towards the end of the docket who had a negative progress report. I thought the Judge\u2019s demeanor would change from cheerfulness to anger, but, instead, I was pleasantly surprised to see her disappointment and then
\nencouragement.<\/p>\n

The judge reprimanded the participant who had been caught drinking, and then handed down a sanction that did not include jail time. Instead, she ordered this individual to sit in Drug Court for two days. I later asked the judge why she gave that sanction and she explained how boring it was for someone to observe the court for an entire day. \u00a0However, this sanction served a second purpose: watching Drug Court participants succeed was a demonstration of each individual\u2019s power to change himself or herself.\u00a0 Further, the reprimanded participant had to listen to the many excuses made by people who relapse into drug and\/or alcohol abuse and saw for himself or herself how ridiculous they sounded.<\/p>\n

When a participant did not get a good progress report, there was no applause. However, there did not seem to be a negative vibe in the courtroom, either.\u00a0 Instead, the judge would focus on the participant\u2019s goals, motivate and encourage them to do better, and remind them that they were there to get help and the court was there to help them.<\/p>\n

At the end of our visit, I asked who was on the Drug Court Program team. I learned that they were the Judge, the public defender, the state\u2019s attorney, the agent, the case manager, the clerk, the program director, the bailiffs, and the medical expert. I was surprise to see how everyone worked as a team, when I first walked into the courtroom. In fact, I could not identify each person by his or her questions or demeanor.\u00a0 I left with a good understanding of problem- solving courts and their purpose of rehabilitation instead of punishment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ashley Phillips, CFCC Student Fellow 2013-2014 On October 23, 2013 the CFCC Student Fellows visited the Baltimore City Drug Treatment Court. As we entered the court room, the first thing I noticed was a chalkboard with \u201cThe A Team\u201d written on it. I soon found out what that meant. When a participant remained drug-free…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,16,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":319,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}