Samenvatting

This article introduces and evaluates three different specialty court programs that are being enacted in a large Texas county to locally fight the growing tide of unsustainably high incarceration rates that is sweeping the United States. The study provides a brief description of the general dilemma of the American criminal justice system that, as a result of the widespread fear of crime and a mainstream news arena that favors grossly simplistic sound-byte-compatible get-tough policies, has become so immensely punitive and overburdening on public budgets that it is de facto no longer sustainable and in desperate need of immediate change. Faced with a situation of political stalemate on state and federal levels, county judges in Texas and other states are taking it upon themselves to bring about change in their local jurisdictions. Through newly designed specialty courts models, they seek to divert special-needs offenders away from the default incarceration track. The article evaluates the overall effectiveness of these new sentencing alternatives and identifies specific areas that need further improvement.