NCJ Number
172246
Date Published
1998
Length
64 pages
Annotation
A process evaluation of the Delaware Drug Court Program gathered information from judges, attorneys, treatment management personnel, and treatment providers regarding successes and issues related to the drug court.
Abstract
The research also included a pilot study to determine the problems that a more comprehensive evaluation effort would experience and to determine whether preliminary results would support the drug court goals. The interviews uniformly revealed enthusiastic support for the importance and success of the Delaware drug courts. The role of treatment access services is regarded as the court's most pressing organizational issue. The pilot study gathered information on offender characteristics, treatment outcomes, and criminal behavior. Results suggested that a comprehensive evaluation is possible given sufficient resources, but the cost of collecting and organizing sufficient data should not be underestimated. Results from Urban New Castle County Track I revealed that offenders who complete the program cause about one-third the harm to society that non-completers do. Data from Urban New Castle County Track II revealed that program completers caused about one-fourth the harm to society that non-completers do. However, data on the rural sample are incomplete, because the programs are new and most of the offenders in the pilot sample are still in the program. Figures, tables, appended methodological information, and 11 references