Alternative Sentencing: How A NY Gambling Treatment Court is Shaking up the System in 2006
Judge Mark G. Farrell created a Gambling Treatment Court in Amherst, N.Y. Five years later, the Amherst Gambling Treatment Court is still the only one of its kind in the United States, but the unique treatment approach has been attracting increased attention as gaming jurisdictions across the country investigate new ways to treat and counsel disordered gamblers.
Farrell, a veteran of problem-solving courts, recognized the need for a gambling treatment court after seeing a number of defendants in Amherst's traditional courts who appeared to have what he termed "out-of-control gambling problems." Since the criminal justice system lacked an effective way to deal with gambling-addicted defendants, Farrell chose to create a separate court modeled on the now-pervasive drug courts that would serve as a rehabilitation-focused alternative to the traditional criminal justice system. Drug courts are special courts given the responsibility to handle cases involving substance-abusing offenders that combine comprehensive supervision, drug testing, treatment services and immediate sanctions and incentives. They employ the full power of traditional court authorities (judges, prosecutors, etc.) to force the offender to deal with his or her substance-abuse problem.
"One key difference between the traditional system and gambling treatment court is that, with the treatment approach, we're creating early intervention," Farrell said. "While defendants may never be referred to the appropriate treatment services in the traditional system, the treatment court program immediately begins the rehabilitation."
The judges in Amherst's traditional courts are aware of Farrell's program and recommend candidates for gambling treatment court if they think a defendant would be a good fit. After passing an initial screening process to qualify for the program, a gambling treatment court defendant must sign a contract with the court and its treatment agencies agreeing to participate in the program and abide by its rules, including pleading guilty and waiving all their constitutional rights. They then begin a multi-faceted treatment program that incorporates a broad range of services, including individual and group therapy, debt counseling and more. The Amherst court partners with two local organizations, Jewish Family Services and Horizon Health Services, to provide treatment and counseling services to the defendants. The program, which initially took a participant about eight to nine months to complete, now takes a little over a year, Farrell said.
Upon entering the program, participants must return to the court room weekly to report their treatment progress to Farrell, with visits becoming less frequent as they progress through the program. Like drug courts, the gambling treatment court relies on a system of sanctions and rewards to keep participants on track. When participants fail to comply with program regulations, Farrell imposes sanctions ranging from more frequent court appearances to jail time, and repeated non-compliance earns harsher sanctions. Alternatively, progress is rewarded by recognition from the bench during regular court visits, reduced supervision and less frequent court appearances.
A participant who successfully completes the gambling court program often is met with reduced or suspended jail time and reduced fines or fees. According to Farrell, the court has graduated 24 individuals since its inception in 2001, with 35 participants currently enrolled in the program. To date, there have been no reports of gambling relapses or new arrests among past graduates.
Farrell said one obstacle hampering the growth of the gambling treatment court approach is that society views disordered gambling as a vice rather than an illness.
"The fact is that most people would rather admit to being a heroin addict than to being a problem gambler," Farrell said. "While our society has come to accept addiction to drugs or alcohol as an illness, the majority of people still see gambling addiction as a moral weakness."
He noted another obstacle lies in the difficulty in visually identifying problem gamblers. Though the program is continually refining its screening procedures, without an exact scientific test for gambling disorders, the identification of potential program participants still relies on a combination of well-informed but subjective factors, Farrell said. As they learn more about the disorder, Farrell and his service-provider partners adjust the program and make improvements.
After five years, the Amherst court still stands alone as the only court of its kind, and Farrell maintains that the only way further progress and the expansion of gambling treatment courts will be possible is through increased awareness of the disorder and proactive cooperation between government, industry, service providers and others. He identifies current drug court judges as the best candidates to start gambling treatment courts in new jurisdictions, but points out that supporters of gambling court as a treatment approach have had a hard time getting these judges interested in the initiative, perhaps due to what he terms the "new level of bureaucracy" surrounding problem-solving courts.
Despite these difficulties, Farrell believes it is still possible for the gambling court model to be successful in other jurisdictions. "When I started the gambling treatment court in Amherst," Farrell said, "I didn't ask permission, I just did it." And that same perspective may be exactly what it will take, according to Farrell, to get gambling courts up and running in other areas of the country.
