Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Kings County District Attorneys Office Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison (DTAP) Program

• NCJ Number: 212988
• Journal: Justice Research and Policy Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Dated: 2005 Pages: 1-25
• Author(s): Gary A. Zarkin; Laura J. Dunlap; Steven Belenko; Paul A. Dynia
• Date Published: 2005
• Length: 25 pages
• Grant Number(s): R01-DA9075
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute on Drug Abuse; National Ctr on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA)
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study analyzed the costs and benefits of the Kings County District Attorney’s Office Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison (DTAP) program in Brooklyn, NY.

Abstract

The findings indicated that in comparison to the traditional criminal justice process, the DTAP program provided a cost-beneficial alternative to prison for nonviolent felony drug offenders. The results indicated that 57 percent of DTAP participants were rearrested during the follow-up period compared with 75 percent of the comparison group. Moreover, only 30 percent of DTAP participants had a new jail sentence and only 7 percent had a new prison sentence compared with 51 percent and 18 percent, respectively, of comparison subjects. The authors note that the benefits increase in each subsequent year of analysis, underscoring the importance of adopting a long-term perspective to criminal justice policy. The 6-year cumulative cost of the programs indicated that the DTAP program saved an average of $88,554 over the study period. Data from a 6-year longitudinal quasi-experimental design with 2 groups--150 DTAP participants and a matched comparison group of 130 drug offenders who entered prison were used to estimate the criminal justice system costs associated with criminal recidivism across the 2 groups. Tables, figure, references