Charisma: An Obscured Variable of Program Efficacy? The Exemplar from a Problem-solving Court

• In Event: Drugs, Alcohol, and Problem-Solving Courts

Abstract

Efforts to redirect offenders’ trajectories through programs such as vocational training, job placement assistance, victim impact panels, life skills training, anger management, and problem-solving courts have had varied degrees of success, and typically modest effects on offender outcomes. Program evaluation typically measures target outcomes, program design and characteristics, service delivery, offender participation, and post-program offender outcomes, e.g. recidivism and behavioral changes. Evaluations of programs that include motivational elements, such as problem-solving courts, similarly have focused on instrumental program content and offender outcomes. Problem-solving courts, however, if operated as a therapeutic jurisprudence intervention, intentional or not, include an altered role of the judge as an interactive practitioner. Because these courts have demonstrated efficacy in reducing recidivism, it invites study of the judge as an independent variable. Using qualitative analysis, this paper explores the judge practitioner role in a DUI problem-solving court. The results suggest that the characteristics of the practitioner, such as charisma and communication style, may be influential. This analysis offers the introduction of a practitioner variable which may increase our understanding of the significant variance in effects observed across studies of similar offender programs.

Author

• Kerry Edwards, Slippery Rock University