Court-Mandated Treatment

Court-mandated treatment is also referred to as court-ordered treatment, state-ordered treatment, or compulsory treatment. It is a form of therapeutic intervention ordered by the courts or sanctioned by the state as a rehabilitative effort for criminal offenders. Mandatory treatment most often occurs in community settings, as opposed to correctional treatment in an institution (e.g., criminal mental hospital, prison, or jail). In the case of criminal offenders, courts often order the type, frequency, and/or length of mandatory treatment specific to correcting the offending behavior. Probation officers (or parole officers, when an offender has been incarcerated prior to the referral to treatment) are charged with the duty of monitoring court-ordered treatment. Mandatory treatment is often a condition of the probation or parole agreement and allows the courts ...