NCJ Number
128833
Editor(s)
J Haaga,
P Reuter
Date Published
1991
Length
31 pages
Annotation
The Bureau of Justice Statistics funded a conference of nongovernmental analysts, convened by the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, to recommend improvements in data collection for drug policy decisionmaking.
Abstract
Estimates of drug use prevalence, consumption, and expenditures are essential in fashioning drug policies. Such estimates can only be generated through consistent surveys of households, the homeless, prisons, other parties in the criminal justice system, and other institutions. The agencies involved in this data collection should develop better internal analytic capabilities and build relationships with external sources of analysis. This conference report also recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services work to quantify and monitor the health consequences of drug use by modifying existing data series. The Bureau of Justice Statistics should try to develop measures of community-wide effects of drug use and trafficking. Surveys of schools and local drug prevention agencies, privately funded treatment programs, and law enforcement agencies would help in assessing these various program effects. 2 appendixes