Drug Courts: Overview of Growth, Characteristics, and Results
GGD-97-106
Published: Jul 31, 1997. Publicly Released: Jul 31, 1997.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a legislative mandate, GAO reviewed the effectiveness and impact of federal grants for drug court programs that include court-supervised drug treatment, focusing on: (1) the universe of and funding for drug courts; (2) the approaches, characteristics, and completion and retention rates of existing programs; (3) the extent to which program and participant data are maintained and used to manage and evaluate drug court programs; and (4) the results of GAO's review and synthesis of existing published and unpublished evaluations or assessments of drug court programs regarding the impact of such programs.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Health and Human Services | To help ensure more effective management and evaluation of drug court programs, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services should require drug court programs funded by discretionary grants administered by DOJ and HHS to collect and maintain follow-up data on program participants' criminal recidivism and, to the extent feasible, follow-up data on drug use relapse. |
CSAT's discretionary grant program currently supports drug courts through the juvenile/Criminal Justice Treatment Networks. CSAT began funding of these networks in fiscal year (FY) 1996, and anticipates continuing support through FY2000. The grants support linkages with a network of treatment and social services providers, and linkages with other justice agencies, such as pretrial services, jails, and probation. Each project is undergoing process and impact evaluation. The evaluation includes collection of follow-up data on criminal recidivism and drug use.
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| Department of Justice | To help ensure more effective management and evaluation of drug court programs, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services should require drug court programs funded by discretionary grants administered by DOJ and HHS to collect and maintain follow-up data on program participants' criminal recidivism and, to the extent feasible, follow-up data on drug use relapse. |
DOJ's Office of Justice Programs (OJP) requires Violent Crime Act drug court implementation and enhancement grant recipients to semiannually complete OJP's Drug Court Grantee Data Collection Survey, including recommended follow-up data. OJP has also developed a data system to collect and analyze the data. In addition, through focus groups and other information sharing means, OJP has taken steps to help and encourage drug court practitioners to build the capacity to efficiently and effectively collect follow-up data.
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| Department of Health and Human Services | To help ensure more effective management and evaluation of drug court programs, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services should require drug court programs funded by formula or block grants administered by DOJ and HHS, to the extent permitted by law, to collect and maintain follow-up data on program participants' criminal recidivism and, to the extent feasible, follow-up data on drug use relapse. Where no statutory authority exists to impose such requirements, DOJ and HHS should include in their respective grant guidelines language to suggest that drug court programs funded by these sources similarly collect and maintain such data. |
HHS previously reported that it had obtained clearance from OMB to include voluntary performance measures in the annual Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) Block Grant application. These measures were to include the percent of change in arrests and in drug use before and after treatment. HHS included language in its fiscal year 2002 SAPT Block Grant application package to encourage grantees to collect and/or report post-program data. To the extent states voluntarily report these measures, HHS should be better able to provide additional data on recidivism and post-treatment drug use for their block grant funded programs.
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| State Justice Institute | To better ensure that conclusions about the impact of drug court programs on participants' criminal recidivism and/or drug use relapse can be drawn, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Executive Director of the State Justice Institute should require that the scope of the future impact evaluations of drug court programs funded by their respective agencies include an assessment of program participants' postprogram criminal recidivism and drug use relapse and, whenever feasible, compare drug court participants with similar nonparticipants. |
Since GAO's 1997 report, the State Justice Institute (SJI) has not specifically funded any impact evaluations of drug court programs. SJI has no immediate plans to fund drug court impact evaluations, but noted that if future SJI funding or support is provided for such evaluations, that it would work with the grantee to ensure that post-program data are included within the scope.
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Topics
Courts (law)CrimesData collectionDefendantsSubstance abuseDrug testingSubstance abuse treatmentFederal grantsOffender rehabilitationProgram evaluationRecidivismDrug courts