Criminal Artefacts: Governing Drugs and Users

Moore (law, Carleton U., Canada) considers the relationship between drugs and crime, especially conventional ideas that drugs are its cause. She examines why the criminal addict seems to be the prime cause of crime and why drugs and their use appear to be a stereotypical answer to eradicate criminal behaviors. Instead, she argues that analysis of drug policy and laws and the system whose function depends on this idea is needed. She follows the rise of criminal justice addiction treatment from the 1950s to the present day and analyzes contemporary drug treatment courts in Toronto and Vancouver and a probation program in Ontario, Canada. She concludes that the criminal addict is a social artifact whose existence depends on social structural factors, clinical knowledges, cultural understandings, and legal practices. In the analysis, she adopts ideas of Foucault, actor-network analysis, and the idea that networks exist between drugs, the used, and the state. Distributed by the U. of Washington Press. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)