Therapeutic Justice in Drug Courts: Crime, Punishment and Societies of Control

Abstract

In this paper I examine some of the legal and cultural implications of developments within the brain sciences, particularly in relation to changing conceptions of crime, criminality, punishment and justice. I describe how, within the United States, a brain-targeting medication has come to form a key element within emerging 'drug court' strategies for managing repeat offenders that shift from imprisonment and supervision toward more direct control over biological processes. This case study illustrates aspects of the changing logics of control that characterize contemporary industrialized societies of the West, in which new forms of 'postsocial control' are replacing or supplementing traditional forms of social control. I draw upon and develop Deleuze's notion of 'societies of control' to historically situate how drug courts are beginning to reformulate addiction, desire, behavior and justice along biological lines, and are yielding new technological and practical forms of governance that are transforming the ways that institutions understand and manage their subjects.

Social deontics: A nano‐level approach to human power play

“…As suggested in this paper, this also holds for the negotiations of power within the system of turn-by-turn sequential relations. ENDNOTES 1 In this respect, the concept of power is seen quite differently, for example, in the Foucauldian tradition, where the researchers are interested in how language and discourse are ideologically shaped by relations of power in society (e.g., Foucault, 1980;McHoul & Grace, 1993;Miller & Rose, 2008;Vrecko, 2009). 2 A similar situational normative dimension can also be perceived in adult interactions (Brinck, Reddy, & Zahavu, 2017, p. 140; Hodges & Fowler 2010), for example, in the rhythmic closings of telephone conversation (see Auer, 1990;De Jaegher, Peräkylä, & Stevanovic, 2016) and in many other "interaction rituals" (Collins, 2004;Goffman, 1967).…”

“…In this respect, the concept of power is seen quite differently, for example, in the Foucauldian tradition, where the researchers are interested in how language and discourse are ideologically shaped by relations of power in society (e.g., Foucault, ; McHoul & Grace, ; Miller & Rose, ; Vrecko, ).…”

The brain craving for gambling? Neurosciences and addiction concept in clinical practice

“…The drug got a new life in the early 1990s with findings of its efficacy as medication for alcoholism. In 1994, the Food and Drug Administration in the United States approved it for such purpose, and the drug corporation Merck re-patented and rebranded naltrexone as Revia and started to market it as a "smart drug" against alcohol addiction (Vrecko, 2009). In the late 1990s, naltrexone was used in experiments with the treatment of gambling addiction and findings were favorable.…”

Global and everyday matters of consumption: on the productive assemblage of pharmaceuticals and obesity

“…While this article contributes empirically to sociological studies of obesity, as well as emerging cultural studies of pharmaceuticals (e.g., Dumit and Greenslit 2006;Lakoff 2005;Martin 2006;McGoey 2009;Petryna et al 2006;Tone and Watkins 2007;Vrecko 2009), a subsidiary endeavour is to develop an analytical approach capable of circumventing mainstream sociological perspectives that rely on, and reproduce, artificial distinctions such as the micro and macro, the local and the global, and the social and the technological. The following section provides a brief overview of the analytic approach developed here, which uses the conceptual notion of a "productive assemblage" to capture a range of interactions that connect individual and everyday experiences with global flows of industry, information, bodies, and substances.…”