Social Bonds in Specialized Courts: An Expanded Integrated Model of Treatment Court Effectiveness

Specialized court programs, which began with drug treatment courts, now include reentry, domestic violence, prostitution, mental health, veterans, and other problem solving courts, have been shown to reduce recidivism and provide improvements in participant outcomes. Over the last thirty years, scholars have provided theoretical explanations for these programs, including therapeutic jurisprudence, life course theory, deterrence, risk-needs-responsivity, and procedural justice. These theoretical paradigms have not fully integrated the central role of relationships and prosocial connections in specialized courts. This article extends the integrated theoretical model presented by Kaiser and Holtfreter by integrating social bond theory as a critical mechanism connecting specialized court programs' practices to participant compliance and successful programmatic outcomes. Utilizing research on social bonds with prosocial individuals including mentors, family, coworkers, and members of the specialized treatment court teams, the article argues specialized courts utilize critical components of social bond theory: attachment, belief, commitment, and involvement. Common aspects of treatment courts, including workgroup-based decision making, structured treatment plans and services, incorporation of rewards and sanctions to encourage program compliance, and interactions with judges, map onto these four components of social bonds theory to show they support therapeutic jurisprudence, risk-needs-responsivity, life-course theory, and other existing theoretical frameworks. The integrated model presented gives a more complete theoretical framework to understand how specialized courts "work" to provide beneficial changes in participants, and can be used to develop frameworks for future empirical research and potential modifications to specialized court models.