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Abstract
This thesis examines the development, practice and consequences of the NSW Drug Court. It investigates how, during a period of increasing 'punitiveness', the NSW Drug Court - a program with explicitly therapeutic aims - was able to develop. Further, it examines the ways in which the Court carries out these therapeutic aims and investigates how the concept of 'risk' is deployed to achieve those aims. Using the 'new penology' framework developed by Feeley and Simon (1992 & 1994), the thesis argues that the inclusion of a therapeutic program during a period of 'increasing punitiveness' was facilitated through its use of a number of risk-based tools.