The Hamilton County Drug Court: Outcome Evaluation Findings
Final Report
Introduction | Methods | Profile | Treatment Considerations | In-Program Behavior | Subsequent Criminal Behavior | Subsequent Criminal Behavior Among Graduates | Conclusions and Implications | Report Authors
Throughout the last few decades, courts that deal specifically with drug and alcohol offenders have emerged as an alternative to traditional courts. The drug court model is designed to address the needs of drug-involved offenders through frequent judicial monitoring and community-based treatment services. Within the last decade, the increase in the number of drug courts is staggering. As of 1998, there were a total of 275 drug court programs in operation, serving an estimated 90,000 offenders (Drug Court Activity, 1998). Moreover, the Drug Court Programs Office (1998) reported that another 155 were in the planning process. The U.S. Department of Justice has also placed a high priority on drug courts; since 1995, the Drug Courts Programs Office has provided $56 million in funding for development and research (Belenko, 1998). Given the degree of support for the drug court model as well as the fiscal commitment, it is likely that its implementation will continue to increase.
In March of 1997, the Supreme Court of Ohio contracted the University of Cincinnati, Division of Criminal Justice, to develop an outcome evaluation model and data collection process that the Supreme Court of Ohio could use to determine the effectiveness of drug courts operating in Ohio. The long-term objective of the Supreme Court is to utilize the evaluation model and data collection process to engage in on-going evaluations of Ohio's drug court programs. The implications of the project are of national significance as few states have undertaken a statewide drug court outcome evaluation.
As with any program evaluation, assessing the operations and impacts of drug court programs is a complex process. Each drug court is planned to achieve specific outcomes for identified types of cases or offenders. While some program impacts are common to all courts (reduced criminality, reduced substance abuse, etc.), the characteristics of participants, treatment options, monitoring activities, and sanctions were expected to vary across sites. The development of the statewide evaluation system was designed to be sensitive to differences between the courts while also producing summary information about drug courts in general.
A drug court program can be viewed as a process designed to produce specific impacts, much like a manufacturing operation. The program has inputs (offenders and offenses, staff, resources), throughput (procedures, treatments, sanctions) and outputs (changes in recidivism and substance abuse). The drug court evaluation required that we develop measures of each of these components. The impact or effect of drug court programming can be understood against a benchmark of what would be expected had there been no court program. Thus, the outcome evaluation required the ability to compare drug court product (recidivism rates, relapse, severity of addiction) with similar measures for cases that did not participate in the drug court program. Ideally, the evaluation would enable us to attribute any observed differences to the drug court.
The effect of drug court programming on participants criminal behavior and substance use should be isolated. In order to isolate the differences a comparison group was developed for each court. The only difference between the drug court treatment group and the comparison group was participation in the drug court program. Uniform measures of intake, supervision, and termination were established for both the drug court cases and comparison cases.
The Hamilton County Drug Court, located in Cincinnati Ohio, adheres to the typical drug court model by providing community-based treatment and judicial monitoring. During the initial outcome evaluation, conducted in 1997, it became clear that the current level of data collection and automation in each part of the system involved in treating the offender (i.e. pretrial, probation, court, and treatment provider) was poor. The lack of information from the treatment facility and probation hindered the initial outcome evaluation that relied on pretrial services and court dockets. It has been our experience that data collection by outside researchers that relies on an ex post facto review of case files and hand written notes limits the analysis. Often information useful to the analysis is not routinely and consistently recorded in these case files. Hence, it was decided that individuals working within the drug court would collect relevant data at intake, during the entire service-delivery process, and at termination.
This report contains data from an outcome evaluation conducted on the Hamilton County Drug Court. The evaluation results consist of comparisons between those who participated in the drug court with those designated as comparison cases to determine whether participation is associated with differences in outcome. The first section provides an introduction, the research objectives, and overall methodology used for the study. The second section describes the offender profiles. The third section examines the treatment needs exhibited by the drug court participants as well as participation in the drug court sponsored treatment program. The fourth section contains a description of the behavior among drug court participants while in the program as measured by violations and services received. The fifth section presents the recidivism results among both the study population as well as graduates of the program. Finally, the sixth section provides a summary and conclusions.
• 65 South Front Street Columbus, Ohio 43215-3431 •