Drug abuse is one of the nation's most intractable public health and safety problems and is closely related to criminal activity. Several strategies have attempted to curtail further drug use and drug-related crime among offenders. One of the newest and fastest growing criminal justice innovations in this regard is the drug court. Over 200 drug courts have become operational in 47 states since the late 1980s. These courts recognize that drug treatment and provision of health and social services to substance abusing offenders are critical, yet the collaborative linkages among drug courts and providers of such services are poorly understood. Through semi-structured telephone interviews with providers of services to offenders in 14 drug court programs, and by drawing upon information collected in the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) sponsored """"""""Drug Court Evaluation II: An Assessment of 14 Programs,"""""""" we will address the gap in information on collaborative linkages among drug courts and providers of health and social services.
The specific aims of this study are 1) to describe the collaborative linkages among the 14 drug courts and community-based providers of substance abuse treatment and other services for offenders in the drug court programs, 2) to describe the barriers and facilitators to collaborative linkages, 3) to compare different drug court models (e.g., pretrial) and characteristics with respect to collaborative linkages, 4) to determine the relationship between collaborative linkages and access to substance abuse treatment and other services for clients in the 14 drug courts, 5) to develop """"""""best practices"""""""" for drug courts to use in building and strengthening collaborative linkages. The ultimate goal of this study is to improve the collaborative linkages of drug court programs with providers of treatment and other services to offenders in these programs. Building on the currently-funded NIJ evaluation, this study offers a highly cost-effective way to achieve in-depth understanding of linkages and thus yield practical recommendations for promoting successful collaborative linkages.
| Turner, Susan; Longshore, Douglas; Wenzel, Suzanne et al. (2002) A decade of drug treatment court research. Subst Use Misuse 37:1489-527 |
