By Libby Gorman

            The United States criminal justice system has been rightly criticized for its problems of mass incarceration, systemic discrimination, and inefficiency.[1] Many advocates for change suggest that the current system is unredeemable and that such alternatives as restorative justice approaches must happen outside of the system.[2] These arguments have merit, and certainly those who have worked in restorative justice for a long time can demonstrate empirically how incarceration fails and how restorative justice can succeed.[3] There are, however, programs called problem-solving courts or treatment courts. These courts work within traditional court systems but focus on recovery and rehabilitation rather than punishment.[4] Without abandoning work toward more radical reforms of the criminal justice system, restorative justice advocates should recognize and celebrate the current good work of treatment courts and the validity of non-punitive work done within the current justice system.

            Treatment courts are a form of deferral that combines court-ordered monitoring with community support to address underlying issues to criminal actions, particularly substance abuse and mental health conditions.[5] Perhaps the most widely known treatment courts are adult drug courts, aimed at adults charged with criminal offenses who also have an underlying substance abuse problem.[6] There are also treatment courts specifically for those with multiple driving while intoxicated (DWI) convictions, families facing loss of custody due to underlying substance or other abuse, juveniles with substance or mental health concerns, and  veterans who have become involved with the justice system.[7] This blog post will focus primarily on adult drug treatment courts, because these are the predominant version of treatment courts in the focus state, Maryland.[8]

            Adult drug treatment courts (DTCs) are aimed at individuals who the court has determined are “high risk, high need[],” or who have a high risk of re-offending or failing to complete probation combined with a substance abuse problem that requires intensive treatment to overcome.[9] Advocates of DTCs argue that these specialized courts “combine public health and public safety” to both lower criminal activity and help those suffering the results of substance abuse.[10] Other benefits cited include lowering the number of rearrests for participants, reducing the amount of incarceration time, and saving the state money.[11] Critics of DTCs raise concerns such as lack of meaningful oversight and the danger that participants must waive fundamental due process rights.[12]

            In Maryland, DTCs are part of a wider network of problem-solving courts (PSCs), all of which are subject to Maryland Rule 16-207, within the Maryland Rules for Court Administration.[13] The Rule defines a PSC as “a specialized court docket or program that addresses matters under a court’s jurisdiction through a multi-disciplinary and integrated approach incorporating collaboration by the court with other governmental entities, community organizations, and parties,” and it governs the process and requirements for initiating new problem-solving courts.[14] Some of these requirements are designed to protect the rights of participants. For example, after the chance to receive advice from an attorney, potential participants must enter into a written agreement about the requirements of the PSC and any rights they may be waiving.[15] The PSC must also examine potential participants on the record, so the Rule includes two different means to ensure participants fully understand the terms of entering the PSC program.[16] Before imposing any sanctions that involve a loss of liberty or termination from the program, the PSC must provide the participant with “notice, an opportunity to be heard, and the right to be represented by an attorney before the court makes its decision.”[17] Once a PSC is established, the Rule includes a requirement for regular monitoring and reporting by the Office of Problem-Solving Courts.[18]

            While Maryland law closely prescribes the general requirements to which all PSCs must adhere, each PSC, once established, operates fairly independently.[19] This makes sense considering each PSC works through collaboration with other government and community organizations, since each community—in Maryland, generally defined at the county level—has its own mixture of organizations that are equipped and willing to take part in a PSC. In Carroll County, Maryland’s Adult Drug Treatment Court (CCDTC), the team includes several Circuit Court judges, a program coordinator, case managers, peer mentors, treatment providers, and liaisons from pretrial services, parole & probation, the state’s attorney’s office, and the public defender’s office.[20] The CCDTC program takes a multi-prong approach, including regular status hearings (every other Friday), regular check-ins with both a case manager and a probation agent, mandatory drug testing, working with a peer mentor, attending self-help meetings, and working with a substance abuse treatment provider.[21] CCDTC expects a great deal of work and commitment from participants, but it also provides a high level of support in achieving the program’s goals.

            Howard Zehr’s The Little Book of Restorative Justice includes the following in his explanation of restorative principles: focus on harms, recognition of obligations created by those harms, engagement in the response to harm by all parties and the community, addressing causes of harm, and recognizing that offenders are often also victims.[22] When considering DTCs, specifically the CCDTC, in the context of these principles, certain parallels emerge. CCDTC participants must recognize their own obligation to work toward their recovery and, as a means to that end, to follow the CCDTC requirements. The participants themselves must engage in their treatment, but they are surrounded by a community created by the CCDTC team and the organizations that work with CCDTC. CCDTC and other PSCs in Maryland are designed to address underlying causes of harm such as substance abuse, and the PSC model recognizes that offenders who suffer from substance abuse also are victims of their addiction.

            CCDTC and other Maryland PSCs certainly do not follow a fully restorative model. To start with, CCDTC only accepts participants who are non-violent offenders, one of Danielle Sered’s main critiques of current justice reform efforts.[23] Participation in a DTC is additionally curtailed by the fact that not every Maryland county has a DTC, and the availability of other types of PSCs are even more limited.[24] Victims do not make up a part of the CCDTC team.[25] In spite of the statutory protections built in, it is still possible for DTC participants to be terminated from their program and face additional incarceration or other penalties.[26] The NPC Research 2022 evaluation of Maryland adult DTCs determined the statewide graduation rate was 64%, hardly a glowing recommendation.[27]

            Recognizing these limitations, DTCs still act creatively to reduce incarceration and provide better outcomes for citizens whose substance abuse has led to justice involvement. The same NPC Research report noted that DTC participants in Maryland spent an average of 23 fewer days incarcerated than non-participants over a two year period, that DTC programs invested in treatment services—a needed community investment—and that DTC programs reached a diverse group of participants.[28] During the chance to personally observe one of CCDTC’s Friday status hearings, I witnessed the community support participants receive, including attorneys taking a collaborative approach to future steps, the judge remembering hobbies and family occasions in the participants’ lives, and the participants themselves proudly sharing successes and honestly discussing issues that were impeding progress.

            While both the long-term goal of an entire justice system built on restorative principles and the audacity of those who move forward with restorative programs without waiting for the rest of us are laudable, the quotidian work of DTCs and other PSCs still move justice in the direction of a more restorative approach. Howard Zehr recognized the practicality of seeking to be “as restorative as possible.”[29] The Maryland system of PSCs has many areas for growth, including greater access to these alternatives, exploring the possibility of PSCs for those who have engaged in violence, and improving graduation rates. Still, PSCs are one way that the Maryland justice system is working toward being “as restorative as possible,” and their work is worth celebrating and emulating.

[1] Danielle Sered, Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair 57–59 (2019).

[2] Mariame Kaba, Opinion, Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police, N.Y. Times (June 12, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html?auth=login-email&login=email.

[3] Sered, supra note 1, at 7-8, 96.

[4] About Treatment Courts, AllRise, https://allrise.org/about/treatment-courts/ (last visited Sept. 11, 2025).

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Operational Problem-Solving Courts in Maryland, Md. Judiciary (Jan. 30, 2025), https://www.courts.state.md.us/sites/default/files/import/opsc/pdfs/problemsolvingmap.pdf.

[9] AllRise, Adult Treatment Court Best Practice Standards 2 (last updated July 28, 2025), https://allrise.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Adult-Treatment-Court-Best-Practice-Standards_07.28.2025.pdf.

[10] About Treatment Courts, supra note 4.

[11] Marny Rivera, NPC Research, Maryland Statewide Evaluation of Adult Treatment Courts 4, 8, 10 (Dec. 2022), https://www.courts.state.md.us/sites/default/files/import/opsc/dtc/pdfs/evaluationsreports/mdstatewideatckeyfindings2022.pdf.

[12] Erin Collins, Problem-Solving Courts and the Outcome Oversight Gap, 92 UMKC L. Rev. 533 (2024); Michel Panaretos Fullerton, Failing to Protect Participants’ Fundamental Rights in Drug Treatment Court, 74 Mont. L. Rev. 375 (2013).

[13] Problem-Solving Cts., Admin. Off. of the Cts., Plan for a Proposed Problem-Solving Court, Md. Cts., https://www.courts.state.md.us/opsc/programapplicationdocuments (last visited Sept. 14, 2025); Md. R. 16-207.

[14] Md. R. 16-207.

[15] Id.

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] Id.

[19] Carroll County Adult Drug Court, Carroll Cnty. Cir. Ct., https://circuitcourt.carrollcountymd.gov/drugcourtNew.aspx (last visited Sept. 15, 2025).

[20] Carroll County Circuit Court, Carroll County Adult Drug Treatment Court Participant Handbook 4, https://circuitcourt.carrollcountymd.gov/docs/DTC%20HANDBOOK-NEW%20PPT%20(FSH%20rev).pdf (last visited Sept. 15, 2025).

[21] Id. at 6, 9, 11-12, 14-15, 17.

[22] Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Restorative Justice 28 – 42 (Rev. ed. 2015).

[23] Sered, supra note 1, at 6.

[24] Operational Problem-Solving Courts in Maryland, supra note 8.

[25] Carroll County Circuit Court, supra note 20.

[26] Md. R. 16-207.

[27] Rivera, supra note 11, at 13.

[28] Id. at 8-9, 11.

[29] Zehr, supra note 22, at 76.