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Abstract:
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California's Civil Addict Program, a statewide compulsory civil commitment treatment
program for narcotics addicts headed by the Department of Corrections, emerged within
the context of new applied therapeutic perspectives in dealing with narcotics addiction at
the state and local levels. Program officials promoted the Civil Addict Program as one of
both treatment and control through rehabilitation at the California Rehabilitation Center
(CRC) facilities, combined with intensive outpatient supervision in the community. Prior
to this new era of the medical management of narcotics addiction, the federal
government's strict narcotics violations policies had set the tone for the increasing
penalization of the narcotics addict since the 1914 Harrison Act. This thesis examines
the treatment measures and prison-like atmosphere of the Civil Addict Program from its
inception in 1961 until 1971. Numerous Department of Corrections archival documents,
California legal statutes, and primary and secondary source journals and books have been
utilized. This thesis finds that contrary to the program's public face of treatment, the
control exerted by Civil Addict Program officials, combined with the program's
bureaucratic organization under the auspices of California's Department of Corrections,
amounted to a very prison-like experience for most of the 18,000 addicts who cycled
through the program in its first decade. Furthermore, the subjective medical authority
given to program officials enhanced the Civil Addict Program's punitive atmosphere
beyond the traditional limits of California's state prison system. |
