Beginning in 1996, the National Institute of
Justice (NIJ) initiated a major redesign of its multisite
drug-monitoring program, the Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) system (DRUG USE
FORECASTING IN 24 CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1987-1997 [ICPSR 9477]).
The program was retitled Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM). ADAM
extended DUF in the number of sites and improved the quality and
generalizability of the data. The redesign was implemented in the first
quarter of 2000. The original goal remained the same -- to determine the
extent of drug use in the booked arrestee population (that is, arrestees
brought to fixed booking facilities where digital or ink fingerprinting
and other processing took place) in a defined area at specified points
each year. However, the redesigned sampling protocol and instrument
extended ADAM's goals in the following ways: (1) to provide a suitable
probability-based sample of jails and arrestees to support prevalence
estimates of drug use and related behaviors in each ADAM site, (2) to
provide accurate estimates with confidence intervals that permit tests
of the significance of drug use trends, (3) to create a standardized
dataset on arrestees in multiple jurisdictions to allow cross-site
comparisons, (4) to expand the scope of DUF data to include other areas
of concern (treatment history, dependency/abuse assessment, drug
markets), (5) to provide a platform for distinguishing between arrest
and drug use practices and for drawing inferences about the total
population of hardcore or heavy drug users, including those not in the
current ADAM sample, (6) to provide data for policy responses to
substance abuse issues both locally and nationally, (7) to investigate
drug markets or purchases, including data on characteristics of the
market, conditions of purchase or exchange, and prices paid, (8) to
assess risk of alcohol and/or drug dependency, and drug and mental
health treatment experiences, and (9) to use common definitions and,
where possible, identical questions and response categories to allow
meaningful links between ADAM and other national data systems.
The ADAM program in 2002 used an expanded adult
instrument that was first implemented in 2000. This instrument was used
in adult booking facilities for male (Part 1) and female (Part 2)
arrestees. The juvenile data (Part 3) used the juvenile instrument from
previous years. The ADAM program also continued to use probability-based
sampling for the adult male population, a procedure initiated in 2000.
Therefore, the adult male sample includes weights, generated through
post-sampling stratification of the data. The shift to sampling of the
adult male population in 2000 required that all sites move toward a
common catchment area definition, generally a county. The 36 ADAM sites
for the current year included Albany, New York (Capital Area),
Albuquerque, New Mexico (Bernalillo County), Anchorage, Alaska
(Anchorage Borough), Atlanta, Georgia (Atlanta), Birmingham, Alabama
(Jefferson County), Charlotte, North Carolina (Charlotte Metro),
Chicago, Illinois (Cook County), Cleveland, Ohio (Cuyahoga County),
Dallas, Texas (Dallas County), Denver, Colorado (Denver County), Des
Moines, Iowa (Polk County), Honolulu, Hawaii (Oahu), Indianapolis,
Indiana (Marion County), Laredo, Texas (Webb County), Las Vegas, Nevada
(Clark County), Los Angeles, California (Pasadena County), Minneapolis,
Minnesota (Hennepin County), New Orleans, Louisiana (Orleans Parish),
New York, New York (Manhattan Borough), Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
(Oklahoma County), Omaha, Nebraska (Douglas County), Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania (County of Philadelphia), Phoenix, Arizona (Maricopa
County), Portland, Oregon (Multnomah County), Rio Arriba, New Mexico
(Rio Arriba County), Sacramento, California (Sacramento County), Salt
Lake City, Utah (Salt Lake County), San Antonio, Texas (Bexar County),
San Diego, California (San Diego County), San Jose, California (Santa
Clara County), Seattle, Washington (King County), Spokane, Washington
(Spokane County), Tucson, Arizona (Pima County), Tulsa, Oklahoma (Tulsa
County), Washington, District of Columbia (Washington, DC), and
Woodbury, Iowa (Woodbury County). The core instrument for the adult
cases was supplemented by a facesheet, which was used to collect
demographic and charge information from official records. Core
instruments were used to collect self-report information from
respondents. Both the adult and juvenile instruments were administered
to persons arrested and booked on local or state charges relevant to the
jurisdiction (i.e., not federal or out-of-county charges) within the
past 48 hours. Trained interviewers used a paper and pencil instrument
in a face-to-face setting in a secure and reasonably private area of the
booking facility. The adult interview took a median of 20 minutes, with
a slightly longer mean. The juvenile interview took an average of 5
minutes. Responses were recorded by the interviewer at the time of the
interview. At the completion of the interview, the arrestee was asked to
voluntarily provide a urine specimen. The adult male and female data
reflect all the arrestees selected for an interview from the booking
logs, including those for whom only facesheet information was collected.
The final sample for each adult data file, however, is the subset of
arrestees that accepted and completed an interview. An external lab used
the Enzyme Multiplied Immunoassay Testing (EMIT) protocols to test for
the presence of ten drugs or metabolites of the drug in the urine
sample. All amphetamine positives were confirmed by gas
chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) to determine whether
methamphetamine was used. Local booking facilities provided a census of
all adult males arrested in each facility collecting data for the time
period of data collection in the target county. The census data are not
in the public file but were used to develop sampling weights for the
male data.
A probability sampling plan was used for adult male
collection in all sites in 2002, which assured that the data truly
represented the male arrestee population, not simply an unspecified
proportion of that population. The goal of sampling was to represent
with known probability the likelihood that a male arrestee was selected
for an interview and to use that information to weight each sample case.
Additionally, ADAM's goal was to represent all days of the week and all
times of the day so as to avoid biasing the male sample against those
types of arrests and arrestees who are brought in during the period
interviewers were not collecting data (morning, after midnight, "slower"
days of the week). The final sampling goal was to represent all the
facilities in the target county -- small, large, suburban, urban, quick
release, etc. -- again to represent all types of offenders arrested and
booked on local and state charges within the past 48 hours. Each ADAM
site adopted one of four designs for sampling jails. ADAM resource
constraints, the number of jails in each county, and how male arrestees
were processed through those jails dictated the resulting plan for each
site. The single jail design applied to sites where all arrestees were
booked into a single jail and were being held pending pretrial release
or trial. In the single jail design, the site collected its entire male
sample in the single booking facility in the county. For counties with a
few booking facilities (typically six or fewer), a stratified jail
design was used. ADAM interviewers sampled arrestees in each of those
jails and were assigned to jails so that the site's male sample was
distributed across all booking facilities in the county and was roughly
proportionate to size based on bookings. For counties that had many
jails, ADAM adopted a stratified cluster sample design through which
facilities in the county were clustered by size into a small number of
strata. The site's sample was distributed across one or two facilities
in each cluster, proportionate to size. This design affords estimates
for all jails even though only some jails were included in the sample.
Finally, for situations in which a large number of jails quickly
transfer a selected group of arrestees to a central holding facility,
ADAM adopted a feeder jail design wherein interviewers sampled arrestees
as they were booked into the central facility. Interviewees selected at
the central facility represented arrestees at each of the "feeder"
jails. However, only certain types of offender (typically those
charged with serious crimes) were transferred. Therefore, interviewers
also went to selected feeder jails to sample male arrestees who did not
get transferred. ADAM created a process to sample male arrestees within
a jail that were booked at any time of the day or any day of the week
with a known probability of selection by splitting the booked population
into two parts. The stock comprised males who had been booked before the
interviewer arrived at the jail. Interviews were, in general, conducted
from 4 p.m. to midnight. The flow comprised males who were booked while
the interviewer was stationed at the jail. Flow data collection began
the moment the data collection team entered a facility and represented
the period of the day when bookings were at the highest point. Cases
were selected throughout the period as they were available from booking,
with the interviewer selecting the case booked closest to when his/her
previous interview was completed. This method ensured that the
interviews moved throughout the shift and thus represented the full time
period. For the same reason, when an interview target number was reached
before the end of the shift, interviewing continued until the time
period was over. Flow cases were selected from booking log or records
data maintained by law enforcement in the facility. The booking log was
also the source of the stock sampling. The interviewers in this case
arrayed the male arrestees listed as booked during the non-interview
times chronologically and took cases on an interval determined by the
target number of stock cases for that day. Facesheets were filled out
for all males who would be in the sample regardless of whether they were
eventually interviewed. Arrestees selected in the sampling were not
always still in the facility, making those remaining a potential biased
estimate of the true male population characteristics. This bias was
addressed in ADAM through weighting of cases. A convenience sample was
used when collecting data from the adult female (31 sites) and juvenile
populations (5 sites). Juvenile data were only collected in the first
two quarters of 2002. The sample of sites was not a probability-based
sample. In other words, both DUF and the subsequent ADAM sites were not
sampled from a list of counties in the United States. They were selected
through applications of sites that were interested in participating.
All persons arrested and booked on local and state charges
(i.e., not federal and out-of-county charges) in any of the 36 ADAM
counties in the United States during 2002.
Individual arrestees.
A double-sided facesheet was used to collect information
from administrative records on all adult arrestees selected for an
interview. The ADAM adult interview and juvenile interview instruments
were used to record information from voluntary, anonymous, and
confidential interviews with all male and female adult and juvenile
arrestees in the sample available for an interview within 48 hours of
the time of arrest. Urine tests were used to collect clinical records
data in order to detect the presence of several drugs in specimens
provided by the interviewee at the conclusion of the interview.
administrative records data
clinical data
medical records
survey data
For the adult data (male and female, Parts 1 and 2),
variables from the facesheet include arrest precinct, ZIP code of arrest
location, ZIP code of respondent's address, respondent's gender and
race, three most serious arrest charges, sample source (stock, flow,
other), interview status (including reason an individual selected in the
sample was not interviewed), language of instrument used, and the number
of hours since arrest. Demographic information from the core instrument
include respondent's age, ethnicity, residency, education, employment,
health insurance coverage, marital status, and telephone access.
Variables from the calendar provide information on inpatient and
outpatient substance abuse treatment, inpatient mental health treatment,
arrests and incarcerations, heavy alcohol use, use of marijuana,
crack/rock cocaine, powder cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and other
drug (ever and previous 12 months), age of first use of the above six
drugs and heavy alcohol use, drug dependency in the previous 12 months,
characteristics of drug transactions in past 30 days, use of marijuana,
crack/rock cocaine, powder cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine in past
30 days, 7 days, and 72 hours, heavy alcohol use in past 30 days,
and secondary drug use of 15 other drugs in the past 72 hours. Urine
test results are provided for 11 drugs -- marijuana, cocaine, opiates,
phencyclidine (PCP), benzodiazepines (Valium), proposyphene (Darvon),
methadone, methaqualone, barbiturates, amphetamines, and
methamphetamine. The adult data files include several derived variables.
The male data also include four sampling weights, and stratum IDs and
percents. For the juvenile data (Part 3), demographic variables include
age, race, sex, educational attainment, employment status, and living
circumstances. Other variables cover each arrestee's self-reported use
of 15 drugs (alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, powder cocaine, crack, heroin,
PCP, amphetamines, barbiturates, quaaludes, methadone, crystal
methamphetamine, Valium, LSD, and inhalants). For each drug type,
arrestees reported whether they had ever used the drug, age of first
use, whether they had used the drug in the past 30 days and past 72
hours, number of days they used the drug in past month, whether they
tried to cut down or quit using the drug, if they were successful,
whether they felt dependent on the drug, whether they were receiving
treatment for the drug, whether they had received treatment for the drug
in the past, and whether they thought they could use treatment for that
drug. Additional variables include whether the juveniles had ever
injected drugs, whether they were influenced by drugs when they
allegedly committed the crime for which they were arrested, whether they
had been to an emergency room for drug-related incidents, and if so, if
in the past 12 months, and arrests and charges in the past 12 months. As
with the adult data, urine test results are also provided. Finally,
variables on precinct (precinct of arrest) and law (penal law code
associated with the crime for which the juvenile was arrested) are also
provided for use by local law enforcement officials at each site.
Among the ADAM-eligible male arrestees randomly
selected for interview, 55.6 percent agreed to an interview, 11.5
percent declined, 28.9 percent were not available to be interviewed at
the same time of selection due to prior release from custody, court
appearance, or other logistical reasons, and 4.0 percent were available
but not approached. Of the male arrestees who were interviewed, 91.1
percent provided a urine sample. Among eligible female arrestees
selected for interview on a convenience basis, 58.3 percent agreed to be
interviewed, 10.0 percent declined, 27.7 percent were not available, and
4.1 percent were not approached. Of the female arrestees who were
interviewed, 92.2 percent provided a urine specimen. For the juvenile
convenience sample, the overall percentage of juveniles approached who
agreed to be interviewed was 78.5 percent, and 95.4 percent of these
provided a urine specimen.
None.