Originally Posted by
dwtbd 
To the best of my knowledge, it is the proscribed legal 'remedy' in many many jurisdictions here in the US.
Why , I wonder, do not more groups stand on principle and in recognition of that tradition bow out of such designation, or is there an organized effort to do so ?
AA’s tradition six in the long form shows that cooperation rather than affiliation, with outside entities is acceptable. Tradition five states that the groups single purpose is to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers, and there has been a lot of successful cooperation over the years with all sorts of organisations and institutions.
Tradition four means that each group can decide for itself what it will be involved in, and tradition three means that individual members are not compelled to do anything.
On a personal level I don’t support attendance at AA being part of a sentence, or the soft option between a choice of jail or AA. I don’t sign the papers. We have an institution for last gaspers where they also send prisoners for the last few months for their sentence. It is an awful environment in which virtually no one finds recovery. Anyone showing signs of progress is quickly pulled back down by the group. The prisoners are very disruptive.
I think a better approach would be for the courts to set up classes for their offenders, and invite AA to send a couple of speakers along to appropriate sessions. They could also invite speakers from other programs, and those prisoners that are interested can go to whatever organisation appeals. How ever, this would not be a cheap option, and I would speculate that cheapness is one attraction of indiscriminately sending undiagnosed offenders to AA.
I can also understand why AA as a whole doesn’t shut the door on this. There is the feeling that we wouldn’t want to alienate the court system and risk the opportunity to recover being lost to the genuine cases.