Miscellaneous

Tx Gone Bad?

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Courts are now accustomed to ordering defendants to treatment. What happens when that treatment turns out to be a bad trip?

Recovering heroin addicts ordered to work at the Seattle Drug and Narcotic Center, Inc., are suing the center for back wages. The center takes a "work therapy" approach, which plaintiffs say involved wageless jobs at a for-profit recycling plant.

The program says the company's profits pay for the treatment. But, the founders make $100,000 and $112,000 a year, and own a $767,000 home.

Two judges serve on the program's board.

Minimum-wage laws, worker safety, back pay...how do these fit into treatment-based work programs? Courts would do well to keep tabs on the programs to which they refer defendants, and have policies in place to deal with problems if and when they arise.

See Treatment Center Being Sued by Recovering Drug Addicts, Levi Pulkkinen, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (February 24, 2008).

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on February 25, 2008 (boomark / email).