The Transportability of Contingency Management in Problem-solving Courts

Problem-solving (PS) courts continue to proliferate throughout the country, providing an ideal setting for understanding the factors affecting the use of rewards, a key part of one evidence-based practice (EBP), contingency management (CM). This study uses the concept of transportability to explore...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJustice quarterly Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 267 - 290
Main Authors Portillo, Shannon, Rudes, Danielle S., Taxman, Faye S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 23.02.2016
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Courts
Ethnography
evidence-based practices
Field study
implementation
Judicial process
Justice
Problem solving
problem-solving courts
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Summary:Problem-solving (PS) courts continue to proliferate throughout the country, providing an ideal setting for understanding the factors affecting the use of rewards, a key part of one evidence-based practice (EBP), contingency management (CM). This study uses the concept of transportability to explore how justice practitioners implement CM. Based on roughly 400 h of ethnographic fieldwork, conducted over 34 months in six PS courts, we examine the implementation and adaptation of CM. While decisions to adopt and implement practices are concentrated at the managerial level of organizations, the implementation processes used by frontline workers provide key insight into how EBP may become an everyday workplace practice. This study finds frontline workers adapting CM principles to their environments. While it might appear as though CM implementation strays from the original evidence-based construct, local adaptations provide a foundation for understanding the factors that affect the transportability of CM into routine practice.
ISSN:0741-8825
1745-9109
DOI:10.1080/07418825.2014.902490