Impact of Court Consolidation and Restructuring on Victim Rights Laws (Essay Sample)

Trends in Courts Management
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Trends in Courts Management
Introduction
American criminal justice system has constantly been marred by criticism. Various trends have emerged to enhance its effectiveness and to address these criticisms. Specialized courts have been a popular trend in the justice system in the last three decades. All states have adopted this practice, and its popularity continues to grow. High costs of operating courts, victim rights concerns, and other related issues have also resulted in the emergence of court consolidation and restructuring of victims' rights laws. This paper will explain how specialized courts and court consolidation and restructuring and how they impact court functions. This paper also aims to show changes the court agencies have made to address these issues and their effectiveness.
Specialized Courts
Specialized or specialty courts have been an emerging trend in the American justice system since the 1980s. These courts are considered problem-solving courts since they are used to provide more individualized and rehabilitative treatment for various offenders to eradicate significant causes of preventable deaths and minimize recidivism rates. In addition, these courts aim to provide treatment to convicts instead of punishment. For this reason, they attempt to reduce future contracts with the criminal justice system (Wamsley, 2019). Common examples of specialized courts include mental health courts, drug courts, and veterans’ courts.
Programs offered in each specialized court are designed to address underlying problems that make various offenders enter the criminal justice system in the first place. Mental health courts, for instance, provide counseling programs