NCJ Number
129759
Date Published
1992
Length
68 pages
Annotation
Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime (TASC) provides an effective bridge between two separate institutions, the criminal justice system and the treatment community.
Abstract
The criminal justice system's legal sanctions reflect community concerns for public safety and punishment, while the treatment community emphasizes therapeutic relationships to change individual behavior and reduce the personal suffering associated with substance abuse. Under TASC supervision, community-based treatment is made available to drug-dependent offenders who would otherwise burden the criminal justice system with their persistent criminality. TASC combines the influence of legal sanctions for probable or proven crimes with the appeal of such innovative criminal justice system dispositions as deferred prosecution, creative community sentencing, diversion, pretrial intervention, probation, and parole supervision to motivate the substance abuser to cooperate with treatment. The development and success of TASC are reviewed, along with block grant funding objectives and requirements, TASC program elements and performance standards, and recommended TASC outcome measures. Criminal justice, substance abuse, and TASC terms are defined, and a national directory of TASC programs is provided. 110 references and 13 endnotes