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 Text Box: Florida criminal lawyer Stephen G. Cobb's second incarnation of One Stop Therapy, OST 2.0, has several key differences which he believes are not only the future of Florida criminal law, but constitutes a change in how we think about the social problem of crime itself. Key features of OST 2.0 are: EARLIER INTERVENTION: OST 2.0 starts with the Bail Bond process before someone is released from county jail. A series of prescreening questions are asked before the defendant is released. Diagnosis and treatment become conditions of the bail bond. In fact, the money that would go to a bail bond is often redirected to a diagnostic evaluation and treatment. SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computer Tomography): While SPECT cannot replace a human being's trained, professional judgment, SPECT adds clarity to the diagnostic process. Most patients with behavior problems are not insane to the point where they think they are Jesus, yet they experience significant behavior problems that cause them to need criminal defense lawyers - repeatedly. SPECT allows trained professionals to more accurately identify brain system dysfunction rather than simply to lump large groups of people into broad, meaningless categories. We have known for many years that AA works for some people, but not others. Some people respond to one type of anti-depressant but not another. Stimulant medication works for some people with Attention Deficit Disorder, but not others. SPECT shows us exactly why: Quite often behavior problems with similar symptoms (depression, for example) are caused by different areas of the brain, thus requiring differing treatment modalities. Also, people often have more than one area of the brain that is not working correctly. Treating one area and ignoring another is what frustrates doctors, counselors, patients and their families: Nothing seems to work for many patients, although some treatments seem to work "a little bit." ACCOUNTABILITY, DIVERSION PROGRAMS AND SENTENCING: The biggest change in OST 2.0 is not the addition of SPECT brain scanning, but the accountability section. Each OST 2.0 patient will execute a limited medical release allowing pre and post trial supervisors to confirm that the patient is attending appointments for diagnosis, evaluation, counseling, and reordering medication. In some cases, compliance with medication can be verified when standard blood level tests are done (for example, the commonly used Bipolar Disorder treatment drug lithium requires regular blood level tests as a part of standard medical safety and efficacy protocols). Drug testing is a standard provision of bail bonds, diversion programs and sentencing. ETHICAL PARADIGM SHIFT: The paradigm of crime and punishment is replaced with a new paradigm of crime and treatment. SPECT brain scanning technology calls into question the very ethical base of a criminal justice system based on a paradigm of crime and punishment. If state sponsored programs such as DUI school and Batterer's Intervention Program reduced repeat offenses by 80% over a five year period, we could claim that punishment and our current counseling scheme works. The current system has failed and we all know it. Some people will tell you that "we should just lock criminals up and throw the key away." Aside from the utter dumbness of setting money on fire (around $50/day according the Florida Department of Law Enforcement), there is a deeper problem: Inflicting cruelty upon people who have brain problems that directly cause the criminal behavior in question, having the knowledge that they have brains that are not working right, having the knowledge that they are usually treatable, having the knowledge that we now have the technology and the technique to solve the social problem of crime, begs the question of whether we are moral or merely pretenders to a higher morality. Before you read this, you may have been ignorant just as I was. After all, you don't know what you don't know. Now you know. You may be skeptical, but you you are no longer ignorant. Your opinion on the issue of crime and punishment versus crime and treatment is forever altered by this knowledge. All of the original components of OST 1.0 remain, but these changes to the One Stop Therapy program are truly revolutionary. Florida criminal lawyer Stephen G. Cobb's core mission in life is to solve the social problem of crime. One Stop Therapy will continue to be revised until we achieve this result. Many people will claim that this cannot be done. That just means they aren't going to be part of the solution. The need for law enforcement, prosecution and defense will not simply vanish into the night. Rather, they will be transformed. Tension will always exist between citizen and government, as it should, lest one abuse the other with the power of law. But Florida criminal lawyer Stephen G. Cobb believes that legally abusing people because they have a physical illnesses that causes them to have dysfunctional and even dangerous behavior is cruel, counter-productive and puts the people of our great nation at risk from criminal acts through government inaction. Ignorance has hurt far too many of us. Let us not embrace stupidity by ignoring the biological causation of dysfunctional behavior that is reasonably foreseeable and treatable. A life sentence for a repeat DUI offender after someone has been killed is too late for the victim.         1 | 2  
 

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