Drug Court Evaluations

Drug Court Evaluations must focus on program evaluation as the central core of the quality monitoring process for drug courts.

Evaluation consists of identifying key quality indicators through team consensus for which data will be collected and systematically monitored. These measures should include at a minimum three major areas of concern: efficiency, effectiveness, and access. In selecting the indicators Drug Court team members should ask themselves “what do we believe are the most important variables leading to quality, effective, drug court services?”

As drug courts mature, the evaluation process can become increasingly useful in assisting the drug court team’s ability to measure and improve the quality of drug court services. The stakes and expectations for drug courts are high because their overall goals are to: reduce recidivism, incarceration, reduce substance use and assure public safety. And they must achieve these objectives with limited resources from public dollars.

Drug court evaluation systems cannot presume to know whether they are achieving these drug court goals, unless they fully implement all of the necessary elements of an evaluation system that measure Drug Court effectiveness.

Drug Court Evaluation systems should include:

1. The number of admissions during the quarter compared to previous quarter of current and past year
2. The number of clients completing all phases of the drug court
3. The average number of days spent in each phase of drug court
4. The number of discharges for the quarter and the status; complete, incomplete, elopements
5. Demographic variables should include a profile of the drug court population ie. males, females, ages, race, etc.
6. Employment status
7. Housing Status
8. Average Length of stay for people completing services and of those not completing services
9. In program recidivism
10. Rewards, Sanctions and ratios of the two
11. What percent of participants have positive drug tests and what are the drugs most commonly found positive
12. Do participants have easy access to public transportation?

When drug courts routinely review this kind of data and base program changes or corrective actions on the data, they frequently experience on average a 105% decrease in their recidivism rates!²

Outcome Evaluation

Outcome evaluation, in contrast with program evaluation which addresses the effectiveness of the services being delivered, responds to the question, “How well are our drug court participants doing over time as a result of the drug court experience?”

In this evaluation component, there are quality indicators and benchmarks that include the use of the National Outcome Measures [NOMS] published by C-SAT and SAMSHA, some outcome measures recommended by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities and some measures recommended by the National Association of Drug Court Professionals [NADCP].

The data collected by the ACG Group in these surveys are statistically tested and include ANOVA and other tests for differences to determine how individuals differ from one time [admission] to other times [six months, twelve months, eighteen months, etc.] This is a very robust form of outcome evaluation that yields important information for stakeholders. An attractive, color-printed report is developed by ACG that contains these data in graphs, charts and forms that make for easy reading and understanding by stakeholders.

Consumer Satisfaction

It is well established in the research literature that when consumers believe their needs are being met and have a positive relationship with service delivery staff, outcomes are significantly enhanced.³ Thus, ACG includes variables related to consumer satisfaction in the survey system which permits both the drug court team and stakeholders to understand what clients perceive that is positive and important to them and areas they believe need improvement. Our clients have found the input of drug court consumers to be very useful and have made improvements to their programs based upon this input.

Bench-marking

Bench-marking refers to the practice of comparing one provider’s quality measures results to those of a group of other providers or to a national data base. This latter has been sadly lacking for drug courts and for behavioral health providers, however, ACG Group does have a sufficient data base of drug court providers to allow for comparative bench-marking. This practice enables meaningful, confidential comparisons and allows the opportunity for collaboration among peer organizations for improving services to drug court participants.

Summary

Whether an organization is a behavioral health program or a drug court, outcome evaluation is an expectation of the new landscape. You can be assured that if you are not measuring your results, others will do so and you will be judged accordingly. 

 

¹ Incarceration Rates By Crime. Blumstein and Beck, 1999

² Carey Shannon, Ph.D. “Drug Court Top Ten Best Practices for Reducing Recidivism and Increasing Cost Savings.” NPC Research, Atlanta Georgia www.NPC Research.