Illness or Deviance?: Drug Courts, Drug Treatment, and the Ambiguity of Addiction

Is drug addiction a disease that can be treated, or is it a crime that should be punished? In her probing study, Illness or Deviance?, Jennifer Murphy investigates the various perspectives on addiction, and how society has myriad ways of handling it - incarcerating some drug users while putting others in treatment. Murphy contextualizes her findings within theories of medical sociology as well as criminology to identify the policy implications of a medicalized view of addiction.. Illness or Deviance? highlights the confusion and contradictions about labeling addiction. Murphy's fieldwork in a drug court and an outpatient drug treatment facility yields fascinating insights, such as how courts and treatment centers both enforce the "disease" label of addiction, yet their management tactics overlap treatment with "therapeutic punishment". In addition, Murphy observes that drug courts and t

Bad Apple said An Invaluable Resource for Drug Policy Reform. This book will prove invaluable in the future of US drug policy. As a person in long-term recovery and who lost a dear friend to drug overdose while he was in drug court, Jennifer Murphy's book was deeply emotional. As a drug policy reform and harm reduction advocate, this book provides a wealth of resources I'll use in my work for years to come. A must rea. Useful and thought-provoking study "Illness or Deviance" probes the disconnect between Americans' view of drug addiction as a disease and the punitive methods used to "treat" it. Based on the author's observations of a big-city court system and two allied treatment facilities, Murphy shows that while court and rehabilitation facility staff talk about drug addiction as a "disease," what this