Healing Criminal Justice chronicles Jeffrey Tauber's journey as an attorney, judge, and judicial activist as he struggled to work within an unjust court system while maintaining his personal sense of justice. The central theme of Healing Criminal Justice is the rediscovery of the healing power of community within the criminal justice system. Judge Tauber lays out his vision of a future, in which society, recoiling from its overindulgence in imprisonment, returns to its historic reliance on community as the key controller of criminal behavior.
In Healing Criminal Justice, Judge Jeffrey Tauber describes his experience as one of the nation's first drug court judges, and how a nascent drug court field with a few scattered programs was transformed into the most important criminal justice reform movement in a century. He recalls his worldwide travels as well as his experience as a struggling saxman playing in Oakland's blues clubs, and how both contributed to his understanding of the most critical element in the criminal justice system: community.
Judge Jeffrey Tauber is both the founding president and president emeritus of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NAOCP). He is currently the Director of Reentry Court Solutions, an educational initiative that maintains a nation-wide information website, as well as technical assistance, training, and consulting services to the field.