Student Film on Washington County Drug Court to Premiere

Therapeutic Justice: Life Inside Drug Court, a documentary film about the Washington County Drug Court, will have its premiere at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 18 in the Arkansas Union Theatre. The film was made by Emmy award winner Jesse Abdenour, a recent University of Arkansas graduate. A panel discussion about the pros and cons of cameras in the courtroom will follow the screening. The event is free and the public is welcome.

The premiere and panel discussion are sponsored by the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

There are more than 2000 drug courts in the United States, which provide a therapeutic alternative to prison. Instead of jail time, non-violent drug offenders undergo intense therapy, monitoring and counseling. They are also required to perform community service and maintain a full-time job while in the program.

Therapeutic Justice presents drug court through the eyes of Judge Mary Ann Gunn and the court's participants. One of those highlighted is pro football player and former Arkansas Razorback Matt Jones, who was allowed to play in the NFL while going through the drug court program.

Judge Gunn has presided over Washington County's Drug Court since starting the program 11 years ago. For the past several years some of the proceedings have been recorded and televised on a local community access channel. Judge Gunn recently halted the cable cast after asking the state Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee for its opinion regarding national broadcast of the drug court by "commercial media" from California. The ethics panel disapproved of both the local and national broadcast.

That decision and the issues it raises will be the topic of the panel discussion that follows the 30-minute film. The panel includes Kara B. Moore, an attorney who has represented Drug Court clients and now serves as president of the Washington/Madison County Friends of the Drug Court Foundation; Hoyt Purvis, journalism professor; Judge Tom Keith, former reporter and retired circuit judge; Earl Gill, a journalism student who participated in the local drug court program; and Abdenour, who earned his master's degree in documentary film from the Lemke journalism department. The moderator will be Laurent Sacharoff, assistant professor of law at the university, who occasionally represented clients in drug court during his time as a public defender in Brooklyn.

Larry Foley, professor of journalism and documentary film at the Lemke Department, will introduce the film and the panel.

Therapeutic Justice is Abdenour's second documentary. His first, Knocked Out: Aging Boxers Fight the Clock, earned him an regional Emmy this month. Abdenour teaches broadcast journalism and mass communication at Arkansas State University. Before earning his master's, he worked for eight years as a TV news reporter and anchor.