The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the California Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000 by answering the following policy questions:
How do the implementation and operations of the Drug Court and the statewide mandated treatment models differ?
How have Drug Courts adjusted (how have Drug Court process and policies changed) with the implementation of state-mandated non-Drug Court treatment programs?
What is the success rate (measured by program completion and recidivism) of Drug Court programs before the implementation of state-mandated non-Drug Court treatment programs compared to the success rate of Drug Court programs after implementation?
What is the relative success rate (measured by program completion rate and recidivism) of the Drug Court program model compared to court mandated non-Drug Court treatment models?
What are the investment and outcome costs of Drug Courts before the implementation of the state-mandated non-Drug Court treatment programs compared to after implementation?
What are the relative investment and outcome costs of Drug Courts compared to state-mandated non-Drug Court treatment programs?
What are the relative investment and outcome costs of Drug Courts compared to state-mandated non-Drug Court treatment programs?
The California Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (SACPA) of 2000 targeted nonviolent offenders who have a history of substance abuse and were primarily charged with misdemeanor or felony possession, excluding selling charges, for diversion from incarceration into community-based substance abuse programs.
The data for the outcome analysis were collected from administrative databases and from paper files where necessary and available. The research team developed an Access database that served as a central repository of all data for each study participant. The relational database allowed for linkages between an individial's criminal activity data, treatment data, and other program activity data. Part 1, San Joaquin County Data, had a total of 725 participants and Part 2, El Monte (Los Angeles) County Data, had a total of 587 participants. The Drug Court cohort included pre-SACPA (202 participants in San Joaquin County and 127 participants in El Monte (Los Angeles) County who entered the programs July 1998 through June 1999) and post-SACPA (128 participants in San Joaquin County and 147 participants in El Monte (Los Angeles) County who entered the programs July 2002 through June 2003). The SACPCA sample consisted of all SACPA participants (395 participants in San Joaquin County and 313 in El Monte (Los Angeles) County) who were first time enrollees in SACPA programs between July 2002 and June 2003. The post-SACPA and SACPA data provide three years of outcomes post-program entry. Once all data were gathered on the study participants the data were compiled and cleaned and then moved into SPSS 14.0 for statistical analyses.
The outcome analysis consisted of Drug Court and Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (SACPA) samples from San Joaquin and El Monte (Los Angeles) counties. The two sites selected for this study (the El Monte Drug Court in Los Angeles County and San Joaquin County Drug Court) were selected based on two main criteria: (1) The counties had SACPA programs that differed from each other and from the Drug Court model, and (2) Based on a previous statewide Drug Court study, it was known that high quality data existed in a form reasonably easy to gather.
The Drug Court cohort included pre- and post-SACPA Drug Court participants.
Drug Court Time 1: The pre-SACPA Drug Court participants included all those who entered the Drug Court program July 1998 through June 1999. The Drug Court cohorts were provided from the statewide Drug Court cost study and included 202 participants in San Joaquin (Part 1) and 127 participants in El Monte (Part 2).
Drug Court Time 2: The post-SACPA Drug Court participants included all those who entered the Drug Court program in July 2002 through June 2003. These samples were pulled from the Drug Court databases in San Joaquin and Los Angeles counties. This sample provided 128 participants in San Joaquin and 147 participants in El Monte who experienced the Drug Court program after any changes in eligibility and Drug Court processes due to SACPA, as well as allowing for outcome data for three years post program entry.
The SACPA samples in San Joaquin and El Monte consisted of all SACPA participants who were first time enrollees in SACPA programs between July 2002 and June 2003. These samples included 395 participants in San Joaquin and 313 participants in El Monte who experienced a reasonably well-established SACPA program while still allowing three years of outcomes post-program entry. As a part of SACPA implementation, these counties created new databases, or adjusted old databases to flag SACPA participants. The samples of SACPA participants from the time period of interest were pulled from these databases.
ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
The data for both San Joaquin county (Part 1) and El Monte (Los Angeles) county (Part 2) include the demographic variables age, race, gender, and drug of choice. Drug Court Treatment variables include dates or number of group sessions, dates or number of individual sessions, dates or number of days in residential treatment, other Drug Court service dates and types. Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (SACPA) Treatment variables include dates or number of group sessions or episodes, dates or number of individual sessions or episodes, dates or number of urinalysis tests, dates or number of days in residential treatment, and other SACPA service dates and types. Other variables include arrest data (dates of arrest, charge codes, dispositions, and sentences), new court cases data (case dates, charges, and prison sentences), jail data (jail dates in and out), prison data (prison sentences), and probation data (probation start data and probation end date).