U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Bureau of Justice Assistance

MONOGRAPH

Supporting the Drug Court

Process:What You Need To

Know for Effective Decisionmaking

and Program Evaluation

F EBRUARY 2003

SEARCH, The National

Consortium for Justice

Information and Statistics
This document was prepared by SEARCH,The National Consortium for Justice Information

and Statistics, under the Drug Court Training and Technical Assistance Program, under grant

number 98–MU–VX–K017, awarded by the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of

Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this

document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position

or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

810 Seventh Street NW.

Washington, DC 20531

John Ashcroft

Attorney General

Deborah J. Daniels

Assistant Attorney General

Richard R. Nedelkoff

Director, Bureau of Justice Assistance

Office of Justice Programs

Home Page

www.ojp.usdoj.gov

Bureau of Justice Assistance

Home Page

www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also

includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile

Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

NCJ 197259
i

Notice

n November 2002, the

Bureau of Justice

Assistance (BJA)

assumed responsibility

for administering the Drug Court Grant

Program and the Drug Court Training and

Technical Assistance Program. For further

information, please contact BJA.

Bureau of Justice Assistance

810 Seventh Street NW.

Washington, DC 20531

Telephone: (202) 616–5001

Fax: (202) 514–6452

E-mail: AskBJA@ojp.usdoj.gov 

I
ii

Acknowledgments

his report was prepared by SEARCH,

The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics, Gerald E. Wethington,

Chairman, and Gary R. Cooper, Executive

Director. The project director was Francis L.

Bremson, Courts Program Director. The

report was written by Owen M. Greenspan,

Criminal Justice Information Services Specialist. Twyla R. Cunningham, Manager, and

Juliet S. Farmer, Writer/Researcher, Corporate Communications, edited the report. The

Federal project monitor was Jill Beres, Policy

Specialist, Drug Courts Program Office

(DCPO), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The author expresses sincere appreciation

to the following persons, who volunteered

their valuable time and expertise to the

development and review of this document:

■ Karen Booth, The Justice Management

Institute

■ Ed Brekke, Administrator, Los 

Angeles (CA) Civil and Criminal 

Courts Operations*

■ Victoria S. Cashman, President, 

Cashman & Associates*

■ Jennifer Columbel, Deputy Director,

DCPO, DOJ

■ Caroline Cooper, Drug Court Clearinghouse, The American University*

■ Bob Gibson, Consultant, Preston 

Corporation*

■ Harvey Goldstein, Director, Intensive

Supervision, New Jersey Administrative

Office of the Courts

■ The Honorable Frank Hoover, Judge,

Bakersfield (CA) Municipal Court

■ Linda Hughes, San Diego County (CA)

Public Defender’s Office*

■ Jane Kennedy, Executive Director,

TASC of King County, WA*

■ Lisa Lightman, Management Analyst,

New Mexico Administrative Office of

the Courts

■ Dr. T.K. Logan, Center on Drug 

and Alcohol Research, University of

Kentucky*

■ The Honorable Stephen Marcus, Judge,

Los Angeles (CA) Drug Court*

■ Robert Mimura, Executive Director, Los

Angeles (CA) Criminal Justice Coordination Committee

■ Hank Pirowski, COURTS Program

Coordinator, Buffalo (NY) Drug Court*

T
iii

■ Kate Reeves, Judicial Display Project

Manager, New Mexico Administrative

Office of the Courts

■ Ralph Rogers, Assistant Director, 

Criminal Administration, Orange 

County (CA) Superior Court*

■ Dawn Marie Rubio, Court Services,

National Center for State Courts

■ The Honorable Robert Russell, Judge,

Buffalo (NY) Drug Court

■ Yvonne Segars, First Assistant Deputy

Public Defender, New Jersey Office

of the Public Defender, Essex Adult

Office*

■ Kathleen Snavely, Director of Research,

National Drug Court Institute*

■ Joe Stelma, Senior Deputy Court

Administrator, Jacksonville (FL) 

Drug Court

A special note of thanks to Larry Webster,

Justice Information Systems Specialist,

SEARCH, whose contributions addressed

the selection, acquisition, and operation of

computer systems.

* Reviewed draft document and participated in a

focus group meeting on April 11, 2000, held in

Sacramento, CA.
iv

Foreword

he drug court is information driven. This

report was written to

help those who are

planning, implementing, or operating adult

drug courts to understand the critical

importance of the availability of a wide

range of timely, accurate, and complete

information. The extent to which this

information is appropriately available and

how it is used are major determinants of

effective decisionmaking and evaluation.

Most drug courts require a computer for

effective entry, storage, retrieval, sharing,

and analysis of information because of the

sheer volume of pertinent drug court data,

its ongoing accumulations, and the length

of time it remains integral to the drug

court process. Supporting the Drug Court

Process provides advice on the selection

and acquisition of computer systems for

drug courts, as well as an overview of ongoing and pertinent issues associated with

these systems. Drug courts preparing to

acquire a management information system

(MIS) and jurisdictions that have already

implemented an MIS will find that Supporting the Drug Court Process offers a

basis for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a planned or existing information

system.

Supporting the Drug Court Process presents a functional overview of the drug court

and the nature of the questions and answers

that together form the foundation for sound

decisionmaking for the court’s key activities.

This report is not intended to be a standard

for the court’s MIS. Rather, it will be most

useful when selectively viewed to fit the circumstances and needs of the individual

court. Although there is no intent to focus

on the informational needs of juvenile and

family drug courts, those who are concerned with their operation will find a

starting point here for thinking about the

requirements of an MIS suitable for those

court environments.

T
v

Contents

I. Introduction ........................................................................................................................1

Importance of Management Information Systems ........................................................3

Purpose of This Document ............................................................................................7

Organization of This Document ....................................................................................8

II. Characteristics of an Effective Drug Court Management Information System ............11

System Design ............................................................................................................12

Frequently Asked Questions ......................................................................................14

Drug Court MIS Requirements Checklist ......................................................................16

III. Preadmission ..................................................................................................................19

Screening Eligibility With the MIS ..............................................................................19

Residency Screening ..................................................................................................21

Criminal Justice Screening ........................................................................................21

Alcohol or Other Drug Dependency Screening ..........................................................22

Mental Health Disorders..............................................................................................22

Medical Conditions......................................................................................................23

Motivation....................................................................................................................23

Admission Decision and Client Outcome Record ......................................................23

Personal Descriptive Information Checklist..................................................................24

Financial Information Checklist ....................................................................................27

Insurance Information Checklist ..................................................................................29

Contact Information Checklist ......................................................................................29

Residency Screening Checklist ......................................................................................29

Criminal Justice Screening Checklist............................................................................29

Alcohol or Other Drug Dependency Screening Checklist ..............................................31

Admission Decision Checklist ........................................................................................32

Client Outcome Checklist ..............................................................................................32
vi

IV. Operational Drug Court ................................................................................................33

Assessment ..................................................................................................................33

Ongoing Case Management ........................................................................................34

A Word About Computer Mapping ..............................................................................37

Exit Interviews and Postprogram Activities ................................................................37

Screening and Assessment Instrument Checklist ........................................................38

Background Information Checklist................................................................................39

Infractions, Sanctions, Incentives, and Rewards Checklist ........................................39

Appointments and Outcomes Checklist ........................................................................42

Program Monitoring Checklist ......................................................................................44

V. Evaluation ........................................................................................................................47

DCPO Implementation Grants ....................................................................................47

Process or Operations Evaluation ..............................................................................48

Outcome or Impact Evaluation ..................................................................................48

Cost Analysis ..............................................................................................................49

Drug Court Grantee Data Collection Survey ..............................................................49

Appendixes ..............................................................................................................................

1. Sample Consent Form for Disclosure of Confidential Substance 

Abuse Information, Sample Qualified Service Organization 

Agreement, and Sample Intergovernmental Agreement and 

Memorandum of Understanding Between Drug Court 

Team Partners ............................................................................................................51

2. Drug Courts Program Office Implementation Grant 

Management Information System, Process Evaluation, 

and Outcome Evaluation Requirements ....................................................................59

3. Drug Court Grantee Reporting Requirements and 

Data Collection Survey................................................................................................63

Notes ....................................................................................................................................69

Bibliography..........................................................................................................................73

Published Materials......................................................................................................73

Unpublished Materials ................................................................................................75

Electronic and Online Sources....................................................................................75
operations to how a program is monitored

and evaluated. Monitoring the drug court

program is an ongoing activity of the drug

court team, which looks at the program as

a whole rather than at the progress of individual participants. Monitoring is but one

of several types of program evaluations

dependent on easily retrievable information presented in a format that facilitates

its use for measuring program performance

and impact. 

The National Association of Drug Court

Professionals, with the support of the Drug

Courts Program Office (DCPO), Office of

Justice Programs (OJP), U.S. Department

of Justice (DOJ), developed key components of adult drug courts and performance

benchmarks for sound practices, effective

program designs, and comprehensive operations of these courts.1 Fundamental to

many performance benchmarks are the

manner in which drug court team members

interrelate and the existence of procedures

that enable the team to communicate and

share information, including the following:2

rug courts are a revolutionary problemsolving approach

within the justice

system that can potentially change the lives

of substance-abusing offenders and reduce

their criminal activity, while producing significant benefit to the community. The overarching strategy of drug courts is to bring

together intensive judicial supervision with

substance abuse treatment—and frequently

health services—in an environment of multidisciplinary teamwork. The drug court

process functions through the timely availability of a wide range of reliable information to support high-quality decisionmaking.

As a practical matter, the volume of information that needs to be recorded, processed,

accessed, shared, and analyzed—often in a

time-critical context—is a strong argument

for developing a management information

system (MIS).

The importance of data collection, access

to data, and the ways in which data are

used extends beyond the drug court’s daily

1

I.

Introduction

D
Supporting the Drug Court Process

2

■ Court and treatment providers communicate regularly, including frequent

exchanges of timely and accurate information, about the participant’s overall

program performance.

■ Prosecutors and defense counsel help

design screening, eligibility, and caseprocessing policies and procedures to

guarantee that due process rights and

public safety needs are served.

■ The court is immediately notified

when a participant has tested positive,

has failed to submit to alcohol or drug

(AOD) testing, has submitted someone

else’s sample, or has adulterated a

sample.

■ Treatment providers, the judge, and

other program staff communicate frequently and regularly to ensure timely

reporting of participant progress and

noncompliance and to enable the court

to respond immediately.

■ Management, monitoring, and evaluation processes begin with initial planning. As part of the comprehensive

planning process, drug court leaders

and senior managers establish specific

and measurable goals that define the

parameters of data collection and information management.

■ Monitoring and management data 

are assembled in useful formats for

regular review by program leaders 

and managers.

■ Representatives from the court, community organizations, law enforcement,

corrections, prosecution, defense counsel, supervisory agencies, treatment

and rehabilitation providers, educators,

health and social services agencies, and

the faith community meet regularly to

provide guidance and direction to the

drug court program.

There is often a significant gap between

recognizing that collecting, transmitting,

and sharing information is essential to

effective decisionmaking and recognizing

that implementing systems, practices, and

procedures ensures an optimal knowledge

environment within the drug court. Practitioners, public health officials, researchers,

court managers, and MIS experts have

noted that “most jurisdictions simply do

not have the capacity to maintain, in an

automated format, the kind of detailed

client information needed to support drug

court management.”3 However, this is

changing. Drug courts now use MISs that

strengthen many of the day-to-day activities of the drug court and its team members. Some of these systems are in the

public domain, others are commercial

products, while still others are developed

in-house using commonly available database software. Whatever its derivation, a

drug court MIS generally needs some customization when implemented in a new

jurisdiction.

Several State court administrative offices

are developing statewide drug court information systems.4 State court administrators

are also increasingly requiring drug courts

to routinely report certain data to a central

entity, such as the Office of Court Administration (OCA) or State Office of Alcohol

and Substance Abuse. Further, there is

a growing awareness that evaluation is

essential and goes hand in hand with data

collection and MIS design.5 State court

administrators realize the utility and value

of well-designed evaluations.6 In some jurisdictions, evaluation results are the compelling argument that garners the support

of political decisionmakers and other key

stakeholders, which ensures continued

financial and policy backing for the drug

court program.
Introduction

3

Importance of Management

Information Systems

The range of information required for a

drug court to be consistently effective in

accomplishing its goals far exceeds that of

the typical criminal court. Existing information system models, to the extent that

they are useful to the judiciary and court

administration, are of less value to the

drug court. In most jurisdictions, it is not

practical for drug courts to replicate the

existing MIS used by criminal courts. In

rare instances, however, the best approach

might be to expand and modify the criminal court MIS to establish the software

functionality necessary to support the drug

court. Yet this approach raises real concerns about the far more stringent confidentiality safeguards that must attend

certain drug court information, safeguards

which are not necessarily found in the

typical criminal court calendaring and

case management system.

At every step of the drug court process—

from initial screening, assessment, treatment, and supervision through graduation—

decisions are made. The soundness of these

decisions depends on the judge and other

members of the drug court team having

timely and appropriate access to accurate

and complete information. With the evolution of the drug court movement and

advancements in information technology

over the past 10 years, there is now a recognition that in most instances, an MIS is an

invaluable aid to the drug court, the collective drug court team, and each of the team’s

member entities within the judicial, legal,

and treatment communities.

Drug court practices are a major departure

from those of the traditional criminal

court. Drug courts operate in a milieu

where customary adversarial roles are 

less evident to the observer and, most

importantly, to the program participant.

“Staffings” bring together the members of

the drug court team—typically the judge,

treatment manager or counselor, program

coordinator, prosecutor, probation representative, and public defender—to review

participant status information and progress

and to discuss the imposition of actions or

requirements affecting program participants. Having resolved potentially divisive

issues outside the courtroom, the drug

court team presents a cohesive and unified

front to the program participant.

Before a drug court can make use of the

information that is so critical to its daily

operations, court officials must be cognizant

of relevant laws, regulations, practices, and

policies. Drug courts must comply with Federal and State confidentiality laws. Federal

laws and regulations protect information

about persons receiving alcohol and drug

abuse prevention and treatment services

that are directly or indirectly assisted by

any department or agency of the United

States.7 Hence, Federal grant dollars provided to the State or local government that

funds the courts are sufficient to bring 

the drug court within the scope of Federal

regulations.

Confidentiality requirements encourage

participation in treatment programs. It is

noteworthy that the Federal regulations

predate the drug court movement, leaving

practitioners to reconcile statutes that, at

times, may seem at odds with intensive

judicial supervision and certainly the traditional justice system. A treatment provider

or program is defined as an individual or

entity that provides diagnosis of chemical

dependency, referral to treatment, and

rehabilitative services. Consequently,

most—if not all—drug courts are considered treatment programs and are subject 

to Federal confidentiality regulations.8
Supporting the Drug Court Process

4

Before a treatment provider can disclose

information to members of the drug court

team or others regarding an individual’s

participation in a treatment program, the

participant must sign a written consent

form that, at a minimum, meets the

requirements set forth by Federal regulations.9 The consent includes the purpose

of disclosure, how much and what kind of

information may be disclosed, and the

duration or conditions, if any, under which

the given consent is subject to revocation.

An MIS that reflects the specifics of the

consent form, combined with a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between drug

court team partners that addresses how

information is accessed and handled, offers

strong safeguards for ensuring the confidentiality of treatment-related information.

Appendix 1 includes a sample consent form

for disclosure of confidential substance

abuse information, a sample qualified service organization agreement, and a sample

intergovernmental agreement and MOU.10

Many States have also enacted confidentiality laws or implemented policies and

practices intended to limit disclosure of information relating to treatment. When a

State law is more restrictive (that is, it bars

disclosure of information that would be permitted under Federal regulations), the drug

court program’s handling of treatment information must be so structured as to ensure

compliance with both Federal and State

law. The most effective means of ensuring

compliance with statutory confidentiality

safeguards is an MIS programmed to limit

or exclude access to information in a way

that is consistent with all relevant statutes.

Conditions that limit information disclosure as described in the consent form may

vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Drug

courts in neighboring communities may

also differ. For example, the drug court

team in one jurisdiction might include as

one team member a liaison officer from a

local law enforcement agency who needs

access to certain confidential information.

Similarly, practices and policies vary

widely and may be changed by administrative fiat without affected entities and

individuals being consulted. Staff changes

necessitate training, and new hires require

immediate training, if the opportunity for

inappropriate disclosure is to be minimized. All of these factors pose a risk that

confidentiality statutes will unintentionally be violated through misinformation or

ignorance.

Perhaps the best way to minimize this risk,

and the attendant possible detrimental

effect on drug court participation, is to

design a drug court MIS that limits the availability of personal information to authorized

persons for purposes as addressed in the

consent form and where appropriate as

described in the MOU. Although the MOU

is signed by the court and executives of the

agencies and departments that constitute

the drug court team, staff should not be

expected to sign it, as this document may

encompass policy shifts within agencies

that only apply to the drug court program.

The MIS applies the access rules and can

be updated easily to reflect changes in law,

policy, or procedure without the need to

reeducate all those who would otherwise

have to alter their methods of operation.

Typically, the drug court process begins

shortly after arrest, when an individual

undergoes initial screening for program eligibility. Often this involves a standardized

questionnaire that is used to determine

the type and severity of dependency and

suitability for the drug court program.
Introduction

5

Questions could include the following:

Is the nature of the problem within the

scope of the target population that the

court intends to serve? Are there treatment resources obtainable that are able

to address the problem(s)? The MIS could

include the screening instrument. However, even if the questionnaire, responses,

and interviewer observations are not

entered in the MIS, the conclusions drawn

may still be recorded. Inclusion of this

information does not ensure that an apparently eligible individual will be offered

admission to the drug court program, or

that the individual will accept such an

offer if it is made. Dependency screening 

is but one facet of determining program

eligibility.

In addition to AOD screening, the second

element at this stage is justice system

screening. Here, the prospective participant’s criminal history and current charges

are viewed against predetermined eligibility criteria. For example, many drug court

programs target populations that exclude

individuals with criminal convictions for

violent offenses or limit enrollment to individuals whose current charges are strictly

drug related. In some jurisdictions, the

authority of the court is limited to handling only persons accused of misdemeanors. Some drug court information

systems record both an offense history 

and current charges. In addition, the system may note pending cases; this can

be another factor in determining program

eligibility. If an individual has multiple

pending cases, it must be decided how the

cases will be handled if the individual is

enrolled in the drug court program.

The assessment phase of the process identifies both specific psychosocial problems

and treatment services. An assessment

instrument is often employed, which the

MIS may or may not include. The MIS may

also be employed to match a diagnosis

with available and appropriate treatment

resources.

Following admission to the drug court program, the participant can expect frequent,

regular, and random drug testing. Positive

and negative results, as well as missed

appointments and apparent efforts to “beat

the test,” are recorded in the MIS. A positive drug test result is just one of many

developments that may be the basis for

sanctions. The MIS records any imposed

sanction so that there is a clearly documented history of negative events and

responses. Similarly, a participant’s positive

actions and noteworthy progress are also

recorded. Some systems also record rewards

given in recognition of achievements.

The staffing conference that precedes the

calling of the day’s drug court calendar

often relies on the MIS for status information on all persons scheduled to appear

before the court. Some systems, in addition

to providing various preformatted information fields, allow the judge, and perhaps

other team members, to enter notes into

the system. These may serve as reminders

of things to be discussed at a later date

with other team members, a program participant, a participant’s relative, or someone with whom the participant has a close

relationship.

The MIS is of fundamental importance to

the day-to-day decisionmaking of the court;

however, its significance does not end

there. The drug court monitors its activities by collecting day-to-day statistical

data. This administrative management tool

is also associated with the process evaluation conducted by many drug courts.

Regardless of whether a drug court performs process evaluations routinely or
Supporting the Drug Court Process

6

infrequently, the objectives are the same. A

process evaluation could ask the following

questions:

■ Is the drug court operating in a manner

that remains true to its original plan?

■ Is it serving the intended target 

population?

■ Is it reaching/maintaining its capacity?

■ Are eligibility determinations being

made in a consistent, unbiased fashion?

■ Is the interrelationship between the

judicial, legal, and treatment communities operating as envisioned?

■ Where are terminations occurring?

■ Has the substance of choice changed

within the community being served?

MIS documentation helps to answer

these questions and to weigh the need

for changes to original plans based on

the findings of the process evaluation.

Many operational information systems lack

a design focus and, consequently, critical

information for determining the drug

court’s impact and effectiveness on individual participants, the local justice system,

and the community. A U.S. General

Accounting Office report noted that many

questions about the effectiveness of drug

court programs could not be answered

because critical data were unavailable.11

What is needed, but often lacking, is a

comprehensive MIS that provides the foundation for program monitoring and the

closely associated task of evaluation

research.

In recent years, university-based researchers

and professional evaluators have increasingly become involved with drug courts earlier

in the process, sometimes even becoming

members of the planning team. Others are

working with individual drug courts or

State court administrative offices to design

statewide information systems. These efforts

lead to implementation of information systems that support both the court’s day-today operational needs and various shortand long-term forms of evaluation. Two

prominent examples of these dual-purpose

systems are the Self-Evaluation Manual

and Case Management System for Adult

Drug Courts developed by the Justice

Research Center12 and the system being

developed by the University of Kentucky’s

Center on Drug and Alcohol Research under

contract with the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s Administrative Office of the Courts

(AOC). The former is intended to support

smaller drug courts that do not exchange

information electronically. The Kentucky

initiative will enable uniformity of information collection across the State and reporting of information to the AOC.

In many communities, various stakeholders—beyond those who are directly

involved as team members—have a keen

interest in the drug court. Certainly, elected and appointed officials who control the

budgetary purse strings need to be kept

informed, as do political and legislative

leaders who steer public policy. The constituency that has the largest stake in, and

is most intensely affected by, the success of

a drug court program is the community

that it serves. What information is available

to inform stakeholders? The evaluation

plan is the key. Whether looking at individual participant results or broad-based program impacts, the MIS is of critical

importance. It provides the drug court

team and program evaluator baseline data

and other information essential for determining program effectiveness.

Although release of participant information must be strictly controlled,13 such
Introduction

7

restrictions do not extend to reporting on

the drug court’s effectiveness in serving 

the community. Federal laws and regulations—and, in many instances, State

statutes and policies—protect information

about persons receiving alcohol and drug

abuse prevention and treatment services.14

However, Federal regulations allow for the

disclosure of patient-identifying information to researchers, auditors, and evaluators without patient consent when certain

safeguards are met.15 Hence, collection of

sensitive information is clearly permissible, although use of the information is

subject to restrictions.

Clearly, the MIS provides essential documentation of the drug court process. This

information is a critical resource for guiding virtually every key decision associated

with the drug court and for determining

the drug court’s impact on individuals, the

justice system, and the community.

Purpose of This Document

Supporting the Drug Court Process

intends to assist both existing adult drug

courts and those that are in the early planning or implementation stages. Although

the report does not focus on the informational needs of juvenile and family drug

courts, those who are concerned with

their operation will find a starting point

here for thinking about the requirements

of an MIS suitable for those court environments. Operational drug courts may use

Supporting the Drug Court Process as a

basis for appraising the quality and completeness of their current or envisioned

MIS. Is information available in a timely

manner? Is it made known to the appropriate drug court team members? Is comprehensive information gathered? In addition

to the information that is collected, is there

other information that would strengthen

operations, program monitoring, or evaluation? It is hoped that Supporting the Drug

Court Process will help drug courts identify

needs, strengths, and weaknesses with

regard to the way information is currently

being handled.

Jurisdictions looking to serve their communities through a judicially supervised alcohol or drug treatment program will find

Supporting the Drug Court Process useful

in determining the requirements of an MIS

appropriate to their size, scope, resources,

and unique needs. Checklists provided in

this report identify data associated with

the stages and major functions of the drug

court process. Checklists also point out

attributes and features of effective drug

court information systems. Some jurisdictions may opt to use Supporting the Drug

Court Process as the basis for going into

the marketplace with a request for proposal

for an MIS or a request for information to

gain additional insights from vendors about

implementation.

Supporting the Drug Court Process does

not set a standard for adult drug court

management information systems. Drug

court operations and emphases vary from

jurisdiction to jurisdiction and State to

State. Courts that meet daily and courts

that are in session for only a few hours

each week have different requirements

regarding information timeliness. Most

courts focus primarily on drug abusers,

but some target alcohol abusers. Supporting the Drug Court Process is most helpful

when shaped to fit the circumstances and

needs of the individual court. In addition,

although it is not designed to address all

the needs of juvenile and family drug

courts, this report provides a useful starting point for identifying MIS requirements

suitable for those courts.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

8

Organization of This Document

Supporting the Drug Court Process is

organized into five chapters, a bibliography, and appendixes: 

■ I: Introduction. Relates selected key

components of drug courts to the context of Supporting the Drug Court

Process. Discusses the importance of

an MIS to the day-to-day operations

and evaluation functions of a drug

court. Addresses confidentiality statutes

and regulations that influence the MIS.

Describes this report’s utility to courts

that are planning for an MIS, as well as

those that already have an operational

MIS.

■ II: Characteristics of an Effective Drug

Court Management Information System. Provides structural principles 

for building an MIS or weighing the

strengths and weaknesses of an existing MIS. Includes a section with frequently asked questions about drug

court information technology.

■ III: Preadmission. Discusses the collection and use of information needed to

make program eligibility determinations, including the functional activities

of criminal justice screening, alcohol or

other drug dependency screening, and

screening for mental health disorders,

medical conditions, and the candidate’s

motivation for contemplating enrollment in the program.

■ IV: Operational Drug Court. Describes

the role of assessment, its documentation in the MIS, and its relationship to

development of a treatment plan. Discusses several facets of ongoing case

management, including infractions,

sanctions, and rewards; appointments

and outcomes; and program monitoring.

■ V: Evaluation. Describes three kinds 

of evaluations—process evaluation,

impact evaluation, and cost analysis—

commonly used to assess the effectiveness of drug courts in meeting program

goals, affecting the lives of participants,

and benefiting both the justice system

and the community. Explores the role

of the evaluator in shaping the MIS to

ensure that it collects information that

facilitates evaluation activities.

■ Appendix 1. Provides a sample consent

form for disclosure of confidential substance abuse information; a sample

qualified service organization agreement, as listed in the DCPO Fiscal Year

2002 Program Application Kit; and a

sample intergovernmental agreement

and MOU.16

■ Appendix 2. Provides a copy of the

MIS, process evaluation, and outcome

evaluation requirements, as listed in

the DCPO Fiscal Year 2002 Program

Application Kit.17

■ Appendix 3. Provides a copy of the

instructions and semiannual survey

previously required of DCPO grantees,

as listed in the DCPO Fiscal Year 2002

Program Application Kit.18 This survey

instrument expired on March 15,

2002; therefore, grant recipients are no

longer required to submit this data collection survey to DCPO. It is included

here as an example of a minimum data

set that may be useful to drug court

programs.

■ Notes.

■ Bibliography. Presents a list of reference materials consulted in developing

this report. The reference documents

and other materials identified in the

bibliography address all aspects of

drug court processes and information

systems.
Introduction

9

Chapters II, III, and IV include checklists

that represent data appropriate for collection and inclusion in an adult drug court

MIS. For the most part, these checklists

provide suggested, rather than required,

information and are not meant to be

exhaustive. The exception is information

required to be periodically submitted by

DCPO and grantees and other information

that may be required of drug courts by

State court administrators, local legislatures, or other elected or appointed officials as a condition of funding.
his chapter describes

the planning and

implementation characteristics of an ideal

drug court MIS, which should be weighed

in designing a system or in looking at the

strengths and weaknesses of an existing

system. The focus here is on structural

principles upon which to build an MIS.

More specific issues, such as functional

requirements and the information appropriate for collection, are addressed in later

chapters.

The most important reason to establish an

MIS is the contribution it makes to decisionmaking and administration of the drug

court’s day-to-day activities. The essence

of a high-quality MIS is the ability to collect

comprehensive and accurate information

about program candidates and participants.

Another critical element is the ability to

enter and transmit information in a timely

manner so that it is available to those who

have an operational interest and those 

who are responsible for reacting to it. In

T

11

II.

Characteristics of an Effective

Drug Court Management

Information System

planning a system, it is helpful to continually ask the following: Who needs to know

each piece of information? How quickly 

do they need it?

Assembly of information about prospective

program participants begins at the earliest

stages of a court case. Although screening

and assessment eliminate prospective participants who fail to meet eligibility criteria

or who bump up against program capacity

constraints, it is important to chronicle

data on these individuals for evaluation

purposes. Information collected and

retained early in the justice process may

benefit the treatment case manager. Even

after graduation, initial information may

still be of value. For example, the identity

and telephone numbers of relatives, collected through pretrial services bond recommendation interviews, are recorded in

the system. This information can prove

helpful later on to a researcher investigating issues such as postgraduation relapse

rates, recidivism, or lifestyle changes.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

12

System Design

The design of the MIS should facilitate

rapid decisionmaking at all stages of the

process. Users should understand the

features and functionality of the MIS and

be comfortable with the system. Userfriendliness is enhanced by color coding

that enables quick visual differentiation of

status or other flagged key information.

Data entry and retrieval screens are easy to

navigate with the aid of drop-down menus,

online help, and other tools. Overall, the

intuitive nature of the system minimizes

the amount of training necessary to develop sufficient mastery.

Often, information that is manually

entered into a drug court MIS duplicates

data collected in another system. Arrest

charges are typically recorded in a booking

system. Literal charge codes (i.e., numeric

statutory citations) do not provide the facts

and circumstances that lead to accusations

and formal charging—information that can

be essential for determining program eligibility. To inform pretrial release and

bond-setting decisions, criminal history

information is accessed and retrieved from

the State agency records repository proximate to the defendant’s first court appearance. Pretrial services agencies collect data

about residency, employment, education,

and family relations. Other information,

especially records relevant to assessment

of a prospective drug court participant,

may reside in the databases of treatment

providers or public health and social services agencies. As courts and agencies at all

levels of government move toward information sharing and integration of databases,

they are gaining access to more information, faster and at less cost than previously

possible.

An underlying strategy of the most effective drug court MIS follows this trend by

electronically linking systems to leverage

the information available in each while

minimizing repetitive data entry and storage. A beneficial byproduct of lessening

the amount of manual data entry is the

reduction in faulty information that arises

from keying errors. 

There is a cost for collecting and processing information. Given the volume and

variety of data necessary to support the

drug court, that cost is proportionately

higher for drug courts than other courts.

One means of addressing cost issues is

through a systems integration strategy

that avoids institutionalizing staff expenses. Instead, the strategy favors technology

expenditures that, at a minimum, place a

premium on sharing information electronically within and outside of the drug court

team. 

The system’s design is dictated not by limitations of existing computer hardware or

software but rather by a thorough assessment of the information needs of the drug

court, its team members, and other stakeholders. Similarly, the design is not limited to automated forms and procedures.

Acquiring an MIS provides an opportunity

to reengineer the workflow, not merely to

automate it.

The MIS provides significant analytical

and management capabilities for all members of the drug court team. Although programmed to produce management reports,

it can also be easily programmed to provide ad hoc reports to answer unforeseen

questions. The skill and knowledge necessary to use the ad hoc report feature can

be easily acquired if staff competencies

are sufficient to master the complexities

of the software involved.

The MIS can expand to accommodate

changes in population size, number of

authorized users, program capabilities,

amount of accumulated data, or types of
Characteristics of an Effective Drug Court MIS

13

data collected. Flexibility to modify the

system is the foundation for meeting

unforeseen requirements that may arise

from internal decisions or from reporting

mandates imposed by external entities

such as central court administrative offices,

legislatures, and county commissioners.

The hardware and software components

are widely available, and the system design

allows for the easy addition or replacement

of components from various manufacturers

or developers. Such open systems typically

offer maintenance and expansion cost

advantages over proprietary systems, in

which all hardware and software are supplied by a single vendor or must conform

to rigid standards set by the hardware

manufacturer.

The system’s range of capabilities and its

acquisition and maintenance costs should

be appropriate to the size and scope of the

drug court. Systems intended to be repositories for a large amount of data could

prove frustrating for staff if the data communications infrastructure or database

access operates too slowly. Some jurisdictions may find it appropriate to weigh the

costs of a local system versus the costs of a

networked system shared by two or more

jurisdictions or statewide. This is an issue

not only of economies of scale, but also of

the staff and expertise required to operate

and maintain the system.

When drug courts were just an experiment,

systems based on stand-alone personal

computers (PCs) were adequate. As the

drug court is institutionalized in the judicial branch, automated support also must

be institutionalized. Many States have

reacted by trying to expand their current

case management systems (CMSs) to

include drug court functions. In almost

every instance, court leaders and technologists have been surprised by the magnitude

of the differences between CMSs and the

drug court MIS.

CMSs focus on managing case flow and

clerical operations, with minimal judicial

support. The drug court MIS, however,

focuses on judicial decisionmaking, with

recordkeeping functions as a side benefit.

To support judicial decisionmaking, drug

court systems require much more detailed

information about the case than is typically captured in a court’s CMS. In addition,

a number of drug court functions require

automation that the CMS would not address. Evaluation and statistical reporting

in a court CMS is a byproduct of operational work; in a drug court MIS, however,

a tremendous amount of information is

captured solely to support the evaluation

function. In a sense, a drug court MIS is

also an integrated system, much like criminal justice integrated systems, except that

criminal justice integration is sequential

and drug court integration is concurrent.

With criminal justice integration, data can

be dumped electronically from system to

system as a series of onetime events. In

the drug court, everyone actively exchanges information on the participant’s status

weekly, rather than passing it along to

another agency when internal work is finished. Data exchange is continuous through

the life of the case. This requires much

more sophisticated interfaces between the

involved agencies.

As States move to address drug court

automation at the institutional level, the

stand-alone PC applications will, in most

cases, be replaced by new modules in the

court CMS. This means that drug courts

must standardize the way they conduct

business and must conform to data definitions and formats that exist in the justice

system. Although this will be inconvenient

in the short term, it will ultimately be

worthwhile. It also means that the State

infrastructure and support mechanisms will

be available to help drug courts address

MIS design issues and problems.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

14

An internal network (i.e., intranet) built

with Internet-based technology19 can connect drug court team members to the MIS,

connect the drug court to other local data

systems such as the general criminal court

MIS, connect individual drug courts to a

centralized State-level database such as an

MIS operated by the OCA, or provide the

data communications network for information sharing between its contributors and

the MIS. The internal network requires

that all devices be physically connected

with equipment and lines under the control of the sponsoring organization. Intranets

can include “firewalls” that allow staff to

reach out to the Internet while barring

others from looking in, or, if necessary for

security reasons, the intranet need not be

connected to the Internet at all. The size

and scope of drug courts, together with

the availability of an intranet, determine

whether a jurisdiction should consider

this sort of internal network, which can

be a very cost-effective means of moving

information.

There is no practical limit to the size of an

intranet. As with the Internet, the number

of servers and Web pages that can be added

to support additional information providers,

systems users, courts, services, or information demands is not constrained by technology, although cost and maintenance issues

may pose some practical limitations. All in

all, if the organizations involved are connected to the city, county, court, or State

network, an intranet strategy may be more

affordable and easier for users to become

familiar with than alternatives because they

are already accustomed in most instances to

using the Internet. When the reduced learning curve and ease-of-use aspect are factored in, the intranet approach is very

attractive.

Even if a private network or intranet is 

not a viable mechanism for moving data,

Internet-based technology can still be used

to enter and access information. Browsers—

software familiar to anyone who has used

the World Wide Web—link persons and

organizations and allow them to exchange

information between different computer

operating systems over the Internet. “Virtual private network” protocols offer an alternative to using the Internet by allowing

different systems to function as though they

were part of the same private network.

The checklist at the end of this chapter

can help drug courts determine what they

need in an MIS and/or evaluate their existing system.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get a drug court MIS?

The first step is to assemble the stakeholders

of the drug court process (the management

team) and reach consensus on direction for

the drug court and its MIS.

The second step is to develop a list of functional requirements for the desired system.

What functions should the system perform?

Functional requirements can be related to

operations (processing individual cases and

participants), management (keeping case

processing effective, productive, and economical), and evaluation (determining

whether a drug court is meeting its goals

and is helping program participants). This

list of functions might include communicating the results of drug tests to the drug

court, capturing the results of the many

assessments and screenings that are performed, and sharing these results.

Once a list of functional requirements has

been prepared and approved, the next step

is to analyze what information is needed to

perform those functions, when and where

it becomes available in the process, and

how it is to be captured and entered into

the system. This is an analysis of the
Characteristics of an Effective Drug Court MIS

15

administrative processes that will support

the drug court MIS and is added to the

functional requirements document.

Once there is agreement as to what the

drug court MIS should do, it is a relatively

simple matter to evaluate available publicsector packages and commercial systems

that have been designed to support the

drug court. Because none of these packages will fit the requirements of the court

exactly, it is important to consider the

time and cost of modifying the software.

The requirements document also can be

used to extend the functionality of an

existing court CMS or to design a new drug

court MIS to be created by court or government technologists or private contractors.

How much does a drug court MIS cost?

A drug court can acquire a public-domain

MIS at no cost and, if it has the necessary

computer hardware and expertise, can

expect to pay nothing to customize the

software, except for staff time to get the

system working. A drug court can also

spend hundreds of thousands of dollars

creating a state-of-the-art customized system. The amount of available resources

is key in considering how much to spend.

What software packages are available in

the public sector?

Three packages are available for evaluation

at www.drugcourttech.org: the Brooklyn

Treatment Court System, the Buffalo Drug

Court System, and the South Florida High

Intensity Drug Trafficking Area System.

These three packages and the Washington/

Baltimore Automated Treatment and Tracking System are featured in Public Domain

Drug Court Software: Functions and Utility, a companion piece to this report produced by SEARCH and DCPO.20 Another

software package, Case Management System 2000, was developed by the Justice

Research Center with funding from the

State Justice Institute.21

What kind of support is required for a

drug court MIS?

A major weakness of most software development efforts in courts is lack of support

for the user. Drug court administrators

must ensure that software products are

adequately tested, training programs are

scheduled to prepare court staff to use new

tools, documentation for systems is comprehensive and accessible, and data quality

assurance processes are in place. In addition, staff must ensure that users receive

quick attention when components of the

system fail.

Even the best information systems require

work to maintain them. System backups

must be performed, database compaction

utilities must be run, disks must be defragmented, and printer ink and toner cartridges must be replaced. Drug court

leaders must consider who will perform

these functions, how much of their time it

will require, and how to provide the training they will need.

In addition, all software packages require

periodic modification. Reporting requirements may change, new laws may be implemented, or the drug court management

team may want to try new approaches. 

Drug court administrators must select a

technology that is simple and inexpensive

to modify.

A drug court that is part of a larger system

of automation may depend on court resources to perform these functions. If drug

court technology is isolated from the rest

of the judicial branch, staff and tools

should be viewed as a part of the expense

of acquiring automation. In the real world,

however, resources too often are limited,

and system users must learn to deal with

some of these issues without the assistance

of technologists.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

16

Drug Court MIS Requirements

Checklist

❐ The range of capabilities and cost of

the MIS (both initial acquisition and

ongoing maintenance) are appropriate

to the size and scope of the drug court.

❐ The design of the MIS facilitates rapid

operational decisionmaking at all stages

of the drug court process.

❐ Information is recorded in a timely

fashion and is available to users quickly

enough to meet operational needs. 

❐ The MIS captures all necessary 

information:

■ Program eligibility information—

including residency data; criminal

justice, alcohol/drug dependency,

and mental health disorder screenings; and medical conditions—and

screening information to determine

the individual’s motivation 

for participating in the program.

■ Postadmission information, including assessment data and ongoing

case management information such

as infractions, sanctions, incentives,

appointments, and outcomes.

❐ The MIS supports the informational

and decisionmaking needs of all members of the drug court team.

❐ The MIS collects information to support program monitoring and process

evaluation and to provide the foundation for long-term program outcome

evaluation.

❐ Users understand the system’s features

and functionality.

❐ Users are comfortable with the system.

❐ The system employs color coding,

drop-down menus, online help, and

other tools to aid data entry and

retrieval of information.

❐ The system is designed to minimize

data entry. (The MIS shares information electronically with other systems.)

❐ The system is designed to provide significant analytical and management

capabilities for all members of the drug

court team.

❐ The system allows judges, prosecutors,

public defenders, case specialists, and

treatment providers to enter notes.

■ Notes are searchable by keyword

and are protected from unauthorized access and disclosure.

❐ The system produces preformatted

management reports on a daily, weekly,

monthly, and cumulative basis and can

also create ad hoc reports using any

data that are in the database.

❐ Systems reports are accurate and 

timely.

❐ The MIS enables compliance with statistical data gathering, evaluation, and

other reporting requirements of Federal

agencies that provide grant funds in

support of the drug court (e.g., Bureau

of Justice Assistance and DCPO),

courts administration, and State and

local authorities.

❐ Sufficient technical support for hardware, software, and application programs is available to maintain the MIS.

❐ Technical support and ongoing system

maintenance are recognized as a distinct budget requirement. 

❐ Access to treatment information

(including detailed screening and

assessment instruments) held within
Characteristics of an Effective Drug Court MIS

17

the MIS is restricted in a manner

consistent with the consent form

signed by program participants. 

❐ Access to treatment information

(including detailed screening and

assessment instruments) held within

the MIS complies with Federal and

State laws and regulations. 

❐ Access to criminal history information

held within the MIS is restricted in a

manner consistent with the laws and

regulations that govern dissemination

of that information, based on its

source.22

❐ To facilitate the design and conduct of

process and impact evaluations, the

system records limited identifying and

statistical data on persons screened and

found ineligible, persons declining an

offer of admission after being found eligible, and participants who do not successfully complete the program.

❐ An evaluator provides recommendations on the MIS design and information to be collected and gives ongoing

advice to the drug court team.

❐ The drug court team employs the Internet, an intranet, or an internal data

communications network to facilitate

data collection, access to information,

and information sharing and exchange.

❐ The system relies on Internet-based

technology—or browsers—for entering

and accessing data.

❐ The system is designed with appropriate security safeguards (e.g., firewalls)

to protect the confidentiality of information sent over the Internet.
ssessing whether a

candidate is eligible

for drug court typically encompasses findings in three types of screening: residency,

criminal justice, and clinical. The clinical

screening helps determine a candidate’s

alcohol or other drug dependency problems for which treatment resources are

available. The presence of other clinical

problems, such as serious mental health

disorders (including suicidal behavior) or

medical conditions (including infectious

diseases) can also be determined.

Eligibility criteria are sometimes expanded

to consider motivation if a candidate has a

meaningful choice to make between participation in the drug court program and an

alternative criminal justice process. In

many jurisdictions, drug-dependent defendants with misdemeanor convictions face far

less onerous penalties than having to go

through a drug court program. In other

instances, a criminal defendant may not get

any benefit in terms of having a charge

19

III.

Preadmission

A dismissed or sentence reduced. He or she

may simply be ready—emotionally, psychologically, and physically—to sustain a clean

and sober lifestyle, even while continuing

to serve a sentence of incarceration. In

these circumstances, it is reasonable to

consider motivation when examining 

eligibility.

Established and documented eligibility criteria may be limited to the three most common areas noted above. Jurisdictions vary

widely in their treatment of residency rules,

prior arrests, and the extent and nature of

substance abuse. The actual criteria applied

filter out candidates who fall outside the

drug court’s defined target population.

Screening Eligibility 

With the MIS

Information systems that collect program

eligibility data typically do not produce an

eligibility score or yes/no decision. Although

an MIS could be designed with an eligibilityscoring algorithm tailored to each jurisdiction’s admission criteria, this approach is of
Supporting the Drug Court Process

20

Some jurisdictions combine substance

abuse screening with an initial assessment

to aid in the development of a treatment

or case management plan tailored to individual needs. Here, recommendations

concerning formulation and access to an

appropriate treatment program may occur

even before formal enrollment in a drug

court program. More commonly, assessment takes place later in the drug court

process. Assessment is addressed in chapter IV of this report as a postadmission

function.

Personal Descriptive Information

Although background and demographic

information recorded during initial processing and screening is not strictly part 

of the eligibility determination, it clearly

may influence who is admitted to a program. For instance, initial processing and

screening identify whether a prospective

participant can read, write, speak, and

understand English or whether an interpreter is required. Courts and treatment

providers without access to an interpreter

may be severely hampered when conducting status hearings and treatment. Background and demographic information is

also essential for activities that happen

much later in the drug court process 

(e.g., constructing process and outcome

evaluations).

A sample checklist for collecting a defendant’s personal descriptive information is

provided at the back of this chapter.

Financial Information

Detailed financial information is grouped

with other background information. Verification of these data determines eligibility

for assignment of defense counsel and also

establishes the ability to pay fees and the

capacity to pay for treatment. In selfsupporting programs, the inability to pay

uncertain value. On the plus side, an automated decision strategy may be less labor

intensive. In addition, having automated

data on eligibility decisions greatly facilitates program process evaluation, which

should be conducted periodically. However,

several factors limit the utility of automated

systems.

First, a key part of the screening process

is often based on observations during an

interview. The trained interviewer, even at

this early stage, may start collecting information for designing a treatment program.

These impressions do not easily lead to the

kinds of definitive statements amenable to

assignment of a predetermined weighted

value.

Second, certain information requires

research beyond the initial source data.

For example, the facts and circumstances

surrounding an arrest need to be reviewed

if it is not evident from the charges on the

criminal history report whether the arrest

involved violence and/or a weapon. Therefore, the original source data—a “rap

sheet” from a local law enforcement

department or the State agency that serves

as the criminal records repository, which

in many jurisdictions could be automatically transmitted to the MIS—may be

inadequate for decisionmaking.

Third, approval of enrollment often is a

drug court team decision. A byproduct of

this decision is the team’s collective commitment to each program participant. 

Finally, before attempting to automate 

the admittedly labor-intensive process of

determining eligibility, a drug court should

carefully analyze whether an automated

decision device truly reduces the time and

effort involved or merely presents a summary of staff and drug court team activities

that will not diminish if the device is

implemented.
Preadmission

21

for treatment through personal resources

or insurance is likely to exclude an individual from the program. 

A sample checklist for collecting a defendant’s financial information is provided at

the back of this chapter.

Insurance Information

Insurance information is gathered because

the drug court program’s ability to collect

treatment costs may affect a candidate’s

eligibility. This is especially important if

the treatment component of the program

is self-supporting or if the program design

includes an assessment of fees payable by

the participant as partial recovery of court

costs.

An insurance checklist is included at the

back of this chapter.

Contact Information

Contact information identifies the candidate’s legal counsel, spouse, and other people likely to know his or her whereabouts.

These contacts are also likely to be in frequent touch with the candidate and are

potential resources for monitoring and

locating the candidate, should that become

necessary. In addition, contacts can help

programs validate information collected

during postgraduation interviews and for

impact evaluations.

A contact information checklist is included

at the back of this chapter.

Residency Screening

Program enrollment may be restricted to

U.S. citizens and legal aliens residing or

incarcerated in the geographic area served

by the court. Some courts admit residents

of nearby towns and cities or adjoining

counties if not excluded by local funding

authorities and if frequent travel to the

court and treatment facilities is manageable. Because drug courts vary in their target populations and eligibility criteria, their

residency information needs also vary.

Much of the residency information is also

useful for program process and outcome

evaluations.

A residency checklist is available at the

end of this chapter.

Criminal Justice Screening

Three types of criminal justice screening

are essential for deciding whether a candidate meets program eligibility criteria: (1)

an assessment of current criminal charges,

(2) a determination of the candidate’s

criminal justice status (e.g., on parole, on

probation, the subject of a warrant), and

(3) a review of the candidate’s criminal history record. Unfortunately, relatively few

drug courts have quick access to the most

comprehensive set of criminal records (i.e.,

one that includes national, State, and local

entries linked together by the positive

identification provided by fingerprints

taken at the time of arrest). Jurisdictions

that have received or will seek funds from

DCPO cannot include violent offenders in

the program’s population,23 although violent

offenders may be placed in a separate drug

court track not funded by DCPO.24

A drug court can access criminal justice

information through its MIS by interfacing

it with other databases, such as the State

central criminal records repository, the

court information system, or the local law

enforcement agency records management

or booking systems. This approach offers

timely access to the most up-to-date

information and is the least labor intensive

of any alternative method. Most often, however, drug courts obtain criminal history

record information by independently

searching one or more systems, extracting
Supporting the Drug Court Process

22

the information, and entering it manually

(if at all) into the MIS. 

Keeping information on the criminal history

records and current charges of program

enrollees, individuals found to be ineligible,

and those who elect not to participate has

value beyond its use in determining admission. Comparing program enrollees with

those deemed ineligible or those declining

to participate is a highly useful aspect of

process evaluation. Is the planned target

population being admitted to the program?

Are eligible defendants being excluded?

Similarly, this information is important in

understanding the nature of the population

served and the ultimate impact the program

has on the recidivism of participants—even

those who undergo intensive judicial supervision and treatment but fail to graduate

from the program. Consequently, it is useful

to collect information on criminal activity,

both from documented sources and as selfreported by program candidates.

A sample checklist for screening the criminal justice background of a defendant is

provided at the back of this chapter.

Alcohol or Other Drug

Dependency Screening

“Screening”—a broad term that encompasses a range of evaluative procedures

and techniques—is a preliminary assessment or evaluation that attempts to

uncover in an individual the presence of

critical features of the target population.

This step often consists of a drug test and

an interview conducted by pretrial services, probation, Treatment Alternatives for

Safe Communities, or treatment personnel

or by another entity specifically responsible for overseeing the completion or

administration of a standardized evaluative instrument. Some jurisdictions blur

the distinction between screening and the

more detailed assessment by combining

both functions. (See chapter IV for further

discussion of assessment.)

Typically, screening and assessment use

one or more standardized substance abuse

questionnaires and additional instruments

designed to reveal information about other

factors. Depending on the skills required to

observe candidates and complete the questionnaires, trained professionals may be

needed to administer the questionnaires.

Screening and assessment are two parts

of an ongoing process that identifies suitability for treatment, defines a treatment strategy, and tracks progress. The extent to which

a drug court MIS provides automated support for administering a clinical instrument

depends on several considerations. Is

automation beneficial to the system’s primary user—the treatment community? Is

the system sufficiently secure to ensure that

unauthorized persons cannot access highly

confidential information? Can the system

maintain appropriate security while allowing

more than one treatment provider to access

and “own” a record on a common client? 

A sample checklist for screening the alcohol or other drug dependency of a defendant is provided at the back of this chapter.

Mental Health Disorders

Mental health screening serves several purposes. Identifying a candidate’s mental

health disorder enables the drug court to

judge the appropriateness of available

treatment services. Mental health screening may also reveal symptoms or a preliminary mental health diagnosis that suggests

the likelihood that a candidate would have

severe difficulty functioning effectively in

the drug court program. It may also reveal

a significant risk of suicide. Jurisdictions

that can access mental health databases
Preadmission

23

need to be aware of relevant confidentiality

statutes and regulations before introducing

this information into the drug court MIS.

Drug court enrollees typically undergo an

indepth mental health assessment as part

of the development of a treatment plan. 

Medical Conditions

The rates of Human Immunodeficiency

Virus/Autoimmune Deficiency Syndrome

(HIV/AIDS), sexually transmitted diseases,

and other infectious diseases are far greater

among substance abusers than in the general population. Certain conditions may

be readily observable during the screening

interview, indicating a need for medical

attention. Individuals are unlikely to selfreport infectious diseases at this early juncture but may reveal symptoms in their

responses to a screening instrument. Information on infectious disease is frequently

subject to confidentiality laws above and

beyond those that regulate disclosure of

treatment information and criminal history

records. The Personal Descriptive Information Checklist on the next page suggests

medical data that should be sought from

every candidate to record it in the MIS and

to address the candidate’s medical needs.

Motivation

Research data have suggested that coerced

treatment can be as effective as voluntary

treatment, if not more so.25 Readiness for

treatment “can be prompted in two ways:

by circumstances or extrinsic pressures

such as loss (of job, family support, money,

etc.) or fear (of incarceration, violence,

health risks including overdose, or even suicide). . . . Readiness can be measured both

by subjective impression and objective

quantification.”26 Although motivation can

be difficult to measure, comparing outcomes with degree of motivation can be

worthwhile. Screening instruments are

available that address motivation, and they

can be incorporated into the drug court

MIS.

Admission Decision and Client

Outcome Record

For program monitoring and evaluation

purposes, the MIS should record several

pieces of information associated with the

admission decision, whether the candidate

subsequently enters the program, and

client outcomes.

See the admission decision and client

outcome checklists following this chapter. 
Supporting the Drug Court Process

24

Personal Descriptive Information

Checklist

❐ Name of program candidate or 

participant (name used at booking).

❐ Digital photograph.

❐ Resides within the area served by the

drug court.

❐ Does not reside within the area served

by the drug court.

❐ Residence:

■ Owned by candidate.

■ Rented by candidate.

■ Relative’s home.

■ Friend’s home.

■ Homeless.

■ Unknown.

❐ Address.

❐ Telephone number:

■ Residence.

■ Cell phone.

■ Pager.

■ Phone number of contact likely to

know whereabouts of candidate.

❐ Birth information:

■ Date of birth.

■ Place of birth.

❐ Documentation presented for verification of name and date of birth:

■ Birth certificate.

■ Driver’s license.

■ Military identification.

■ Other _____.

❐ Gender/Sexual orientation:

■ Male.

■ Female.

■ Heterosexual.

■ Homosexual.

❐ Ethnicity/Race:

■ African-American.

■ Hispanic/Latino.

■ Asian/Pacific Islander.

■ Native American. 

■ Alaska Native.

■ Caucasian.

■ Other_________.

❐ Country of citizenship/Alien status:

■ United States.

■ Other__________.

■ Resident alien.

■ Visa status:

● Expiration date of current 

immigration status.

● Immigration and Naturalization

Service number.

❐ Identifying numbers used by the court

or the treatment provider:

■ Arrest number.

■ Booking number.

■ Court case numbers.

■ MIS-generated identification 

number.

■ Driver’s license number.

■ Social Security number.

■ Medicaid number.

■ Other_________.
Preadmission

25

❐ Family information:

■ Marital status.

■ Significant other:

● Is pregnant?

– Expected date of delivery.

● Is a drug user?

– Primary drug of choice.

– Other drugs used.

– Frequency of use.

– Method partner uses in 

taking drugs.

– Average cost of daily use.

– How is habit supported?

■ Number of children residing with

candidate/participant:

● Name of each child.

● Age of each child.

● Date of birth of each child.

● Gender of each child.

● Who has legal custody of each

child in the residence?

● Who will care for each child if 

the program participant is

incarcerated?

■ Number of children born

to/fathered by the candidate/participant for whom he or she has continuing financial responsibilities:

● Name of each child.

● Age of each child.

● Date of birth of each child.

● Gender of each child.

● Who has legal custody for each

child born to/fathered by the

candidate?

■ Currently pregnant:

● Expected delivery date.

● Date of last childbirth.

● Number of abortions.

● Number of drug-free babies.

● Number of miscarriages.

● Number of babies who are not

drug free.

■ Other dependents residing in

household:

● Age.

● Relationship.

❐ Currently attending school:

■ Name of school.

■ Type of school.

■ Address.

■ Hours of attendance.

■ How long in attendance.

❐ Education/Achievement/Status:

■ Completed elementary school 

(6th grade).

■ Completed middle school 

(8th grade).

■ Completed high school 

(12th grade).

■ Completed the general equivalency

diploma (GED) program.

■ Completed vocational training.

■ Completed some college.

■ Completed college.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

26

■ Pursuing GED.

■ Enrolled in high school.

■ Enrolled in vocational school.

■ Enrolled in college.

❐ English proficiency/Interpreter 

requirement:

■ Able to read, write, speak, and 

comprehend English.

■ English is a secondary language.

■ An interpreter is required who is

proficient in __________ (e.g., 

signing, Spanish).

❐ Employment status:

■ Currently employed.

■ Nature of employment_________:

● Employment start date.

● Type of certificate/license

required to perform job function:

– Licensing agency.

● Special skills required?

– Needs to develop special skills

to be qualified for position.

■ Company name.

■ Employer’s address.

■ Employer’s telephone number.

■ Worksite address.

■ Worksite telephone number.

■ Full time or part time.

■ Date last worked.

■ Unemployed:

● Last date of employment.

● How long?

● Last occupation.

● Months employed in past 

12 months.

● Other previous occupations.

❐ Military experience:

■ Branch.

■ Start date.

■ Currently in military service.

■ End date.

■ How long?

■ Highest grade/rank.

■ Nature of discharge (e.g., N/A, honorable, dishonorable, unknown).

■ Grade/Rank at time of discharge.

■ Location at time of discharge.

■ Military honors.

■ Assignments.

❐ Drug of choice:

■ Frequency of use.

■ Means (e.g., injection, oral, snort).

■ Length of use.

❐ Secondary drug of choice:

■ Frequency of use.

■ Means (e.g., injection, oral, snort).

■ Length of use.

❐ Tuberculosis status:

■ Positive.

■ Negative.

■ Unknown.

❐ Health issues currently under 

treatment:

■ Description of health issues.

■ Prescribed medications.
Preadmission

27

■ Prescribing physician.

■ Date a physician was last seen.

■ Physician’s telephone number.

❐ Health issues recently treated:

■ Description of health issues.

■ Prescribed medications.

■ Prescribing physician.

■ Date a physician was last seen.

■ Physician’s telephone number.

❐ Current health issues not being treated.

❐ Physical impairments:

■ Expected date of recovery (if 

temporary).

■ Special requirements (special needs

that must be addressed to facilitate

the treatment process).

■ Type of disability (e.g., paraplegic,

blind, deaf, attention deficit 

disorder).

Financial Information Checklist

Personal financial information

❐ Social Security number.

❐ No source of income.

❐ Weekly or monthly earnings.

❐ Commissions.

❐ Bonuses/Tips.

❐ Other income.

❐ Support payments.

❐ Unemployed.

❐ Federal, State, or county assistance:

■ Food stamps.

■ Temporary Assistance to Needy

Families (previously Aid to Families

With Dependent Children). 

■ Supplemental Security Income.

■ Social Security.

■ Unemployment insurance.

■ Worker’s compensation.

■ Veteran’s disability.

■ Other ______.

❐ Total weekly or monthly income.

❐ Value of liquid assets:

■ Cash on hand.

■ Checking account.

● Name of bank.

■ Savings account.

● Name of bank.

■ Stocks/Bonds.

■ Cash value of life insurance policy.

❐ Owns home:

■ Purchase price.

■ Current value.

■ Date of purchase.

❐ Owns automobile:

■ Year.

■ Make.

■ Model.

■ Loan balance.

■ Value.

❐ Other property or assets.

■ Value of other property or assets.

❐ Total value of assets.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

28

Spouse’s personal financial information

❐ Social Security number.

❐ Mailing address.

❐ Employer.

❐ Position.

❐ Employer’s address.

❐ Employer’s telephone number.

❐ Employment start date.

❐ Full time or part time.

❐ Weekly or monthly earnings.

❐ Commissions.

❐ Bonuses/Tips.

❐ Other income.

❐ Support payments.

❐ Unemployed.

❐ Federal, State, or county assistance:

■ Food stamps.

■ Temporary Assistance to Needy

Families (previously Aid to Families

With Dependent Children). 

■ Supplemental Security Income. 

■ Social Security.

■ Unemployment insurance.

■ Worker’s compensation.

■ Veteran’s disability.

■ Other ______.

❐ Total weekly or monthly income.

❐ Value of liquid assets.

Expenses and financial liability 

information

❐ Monthly expenses:

■ Mortgage/Rent.

■ Food.

■ Power.

■ Water/Sewer.

■ Telephone (basic).

■ Electricity.

■ Heating.

■ Clothing.

■ Education/Tuition.

■ Transportation.

■ Total.

❐ Monthly liabilities:

■ Home mortgage.

■ Other mortgage.

■ Auto loan.

■ Auto insurance.

■ Personal loan.

■ Other loans.

■ Credit card payments.

■ Health insurance payments.

■ Total.

❐ Other liabilities:

■ Court-ordered payments:

● Child support.

● Divorce settlement.

● Restitution.

● Fines.

● Other _____.

■ Medical bills.

■ Other debts.

■ Total.
Preadmission

29

Insurance Information Checklist

❐ No insurance available.

❐ Private insurance information:

■ Name of carrier.

■ Policy number.

■ Telephone number.

■ State insurance?

■ Federal insurance?

❐ VA benefits available.

❐ Medicaid recipient.

❐ Other insurance information.

Contact Information Checklist

❐ Private counsel:

■ Name.

■ Address.

■ Telephone number.

❐ Public defender:

■ Name.

■ Address.

■ Telephone number.

❐ Employer:

■ Name of employer/supervisor.

■ Address.

■ Telephone number.

■ Notes.

❐ Client lives with:

■ Name.

■ Relationship.

■ Is a substance abuser?

■ Notes.

❐ Family and references (up to three):

■ Name.

■ Relationship.

■ Frequency of contact.

■ Length of relationship.

■ Address:

● Home.

● Work.

● Other.

■ Telephone.

■ Notes.

Residency Screening Checklist

❐ Geographic information:

■ Resides within the target area

served by the drug court.

■ Length of residence in the town,

city, or county, as appropriate.

■ Presently incarcerated? 

■ ZIP Code.

■ Census tract.

■ Other geographic search 

parameter__________.

■ Immigration status:

● Expiration date of current 

immigration status.

❐ Length of time at current residence.

Criminal Justice Screening

Checklist

❐ The MIS records current charge

information.

❐ The MIS records criminal justice status

information (e.g., parole, probation,

warrants).
Supporting the Drug Court Process

30

❐ The MIS records the court(s), docket

numbers, and charges for other pending

cases. This includes contact information for court staff with whom court

appearances and other activities might

need to be coordinated.

❐ The MIS retains the State Identification

Number (a unique fingerprint-based

identification number assigned by

the State criminal records repository

agency that can be used to retrieve

criminal records information from 

the State repository and the national

criminal records system administered

by the FBI).

■ The MIS retains another local identification number that can be used

to link with Federal and State criminal records identification numbers.

❐ The MIS is programmed to screen criminal history records for eligibility consistent with criteria established by the

jurisdiction and, if appropriate, that

conforms to Federal guidelines. 

❐ The MIS categorizes criminal history

information by arrests and convictions

within the past year and since age 18

by number of:

■ Violent offenses.

■ Nondrug crime felonies.

■ Nondrug crime misdemeanors.

■ Drug crime felonies.

■ Drug crime misdemeanors.

■ Traffic and other offenses.

❐ There is provision for recording selfreported crimes committed within the

past year and since age 18 by estimated

number of:

■ Violent offenses.

■ Drug crime felonies.

■ Other felonies.

■ Other crimes.

❐ The MIS retains criminal history information on all persons screened for eligibility, including reason(s) for being

disqualified or declining to participate. 

❐ Incorporation of State and national

criminal history information:

■ The MIS automatically receives and

retains the criminal history record

for each prospective participant

from the State criminal records

repository agency. This transmission includes State-based information and all associated information

available from the FBI-administered

Interstate Identification Index within the National Crime Information

Center.

■ The MIS electronically receives

only State-based criminal history

information from the State 

repository.

■ The court, or an agency member of

the drug court team, retrieves State

and national criminal history information via computer and manually

enters the record into the MIS.

■ The court, or an agency member of

the drug court team, receives State

and national criminal history information from another department

(e.g., the booking agency) and manually enters the record into the

MIS.

❐ Eligibility determinations and participant criminal profiles are based on:

■ A statewide, court-based information system.
Preadmission

31

■ County- or municipal-level booking

records that are entered into the

MIS.

■ Local court records.

Alcohol or Other Drug

Dependency Screening Checklist

❐ The MIS records results of drug tests

administered as part of the screening

process.

❐ The MIS records responses from

screening instruments/interviews:

■ Drugs of primary, secondary, third,

and fourth choice are identified and

recorded:

● Alcohol.

● Marijuana.

● Inhalants.

● Hallucinogens.

● Pills (downers).

● Pills (uppers).

● Amphetamines.

● Phencyclidine (PCP).

● Opiates.

● Cocaine.

● Crack.

● Heroin.

● Speed.

● Cocaine/Heroin.

● Illegal methadone.

● Legal methadone.

● Prescription drugs.

● Other__________.

■ Frequency of use over the past 

30 days:

● Daily.

● Three to five times per week.

● Twice weekly.

● Weekly.

● Other__________.

■ Frequency of use over the past year:

● Daily.

● Three to five times per week.

● Twice weekly.

● Weekly.

● Other_________.

■ Number of years since first use.

■ Date of last use.

■ Longest period of time that primary

drug of choice was not used.

■ Most recent length of sobriety.

■ Average amount of money spent

daily on alcohol and/or drugs.

❐ The MIS allows for the recording of

interviewer observations.

❐ Prior treatment:

■ Name of agency or provider.

■ Address of agency or provider.

■ Contact name.

■ For what drug/substance?

■ Telephone number of agency or

provider.

■ Approximate start date.

■ Approximate end date.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

32

■ Reason for ending rehabilitation.

■ Details of the candidate’s performance pertaining to his or her prior

rehabilitation.

Admission Decision Checklist

❐ Admitted to drug court.

❐ Date found eligible.

❐ Date offered enrollment.

❐ Not admitted to program due to:

■ Current violent offense.

■ Prior violent offense.

■ Prior criminal history.

■ Not an alcohol or drug abuser.

■ Contagious health risk or other

medical condition.

■ Not suitable.

■ Declined admission.

Client Outcome Checklist

❐ The MIS records the date of program

enrollment.

❐ The MIS records the date the client

exited the program:

■ Voluntary separation:

● Reason ___________.

■ Discharge:

● Reason ___________.

■ Graduation.

■ Death.
rug courts continuously collect and analyze

extensive information

throughout the course

of the program. This broad mix of information supports treatment decisions, ongoing

case management, and judicial supervision.

In addition, appointments and their outcomes are carefully tracked. Detailed clinical

case management information is not usually

recorded in the drug court MIS. However,

the system should document counseling

appointments, treatment-imposed sanctions,

and other information that needs to be coordinated with the court or that may affect

how the court supervises the client. 

Assessment

A formal assessment usually takes place

soon after a participant is screened and

admitted to the drug court program. It is

the first stage of a process that continues

while an individual remains under the drug

court’s supervision. The assessment is a

detailed exploration of areas addressed in

D

33

IV.

Operational Drug Court

the screening process (such as family and

social relationships, employment and education history, and status information) and

new areas. Assessment is the basis for

developing a treatment plan, including the

timing and provision of specific services.27

Treatment frequently includes at least some

of the following services: individual and

group counseling, behavioral therapies, peer

counseling, culturally and gender-competent

providers, job skills training, psychotherapy,

and drug testing.

The MIS should include at least one comprehensive standardized assessment instrument

that is appropriate for the target population

and available treatment resources. Additional assessment instruments may be included

to refine the decisionmaking process. Many

evaluative tools can be acquired without

cost because they are in the public domain.

However, there may be costs associated with

bringing in a trainer. The cost of administering an instrument and scoring the results

varies considerably. The lengthier and more

complex the instrument (particularly those
Supporting the Drug Court Process

34

that call for qualitative judgments on the

part of the interviewer), the more expensive

it is to administer and score. In some

instances, costs decline when scoring is

automated.

The MIS should identify any instrument(s)

used in either pre- or postadmission processing, even those that are not automated as part of the MIS. This information is

useful for studies of the effectiveness of

screening and evaluation tools undertaken

to assist local drug court decisionmaking

and for cross-jurisdictional research within

States and throughout the Nation. If entire

assessment or screening documents are not

recorded in the MIS, consideration should

be given to selectively including information relevant to various evaluation tasks.

For example, participants with coexisting

disorders are an exceptionally challenging

population.28 Fluctuations over time in 

the number of program participants with

coexisting mental disorders and substance

abuse problems may help to explain changes

in program retention and graduation rates.

Assessment determines a candidate’s

suitability for substance abuse treatment

and placement in a specific treatment

modality/setting. A comprehensive assessment evaluation includes information

regarding current and past use/abuse of

drugs; justice system involvement; medical, familial, social, educational, military,

employment, and treatment histories; and

risk for infectious diseases (e.g., sexually

transmitted diseases, tuberculosis,

HIV/AIDS, hepatitis).29

Many assessment instruments, typically

scored questionnaires, are available in the

public domain and from the private sector.30 Some instruments require considerable skill on the part of the interviewer;

some do not. Others are self-administered

questionnaires. The selection of assessment

tools is largely based on budget (cost of

acquisition plus cost of administration and

scoring), target population, and the range

of available treatment services. The objective is to optimize the match between need

and treatment resources. Typically, the

questionnaire and its scoring methodology

can be stored, accessed, and completed as

part of the MIS database. Full access to

assessment information is often restricted

to treatment case managers and other diagnostic or clinical personnel.

Supporting the Drug Court Process treats

assessment as a postadmission process.

However, as previously noted, some drug

court programs have blurred the distinction between screening and assessment by

combining these activities. (See chapter III

for a detailed discussion of screening.)

The following section identifies some of the

many screening and assessment instruments available to drug courts. It also lists

background information items the MIS

should record if they are not included in

the instruments chosen.

A sample checklist for screening and

assessment instruments is provided at the

back of this chapter.

Background Information

The MIS should capture the background

information given in the checklist at the

end of this chapter, if it is not recorded as

a byproduct of screening and assessment.

Ongoing Case Management

The drug court team reviews each program

participant’s status information continuously. The judge and the drug court team

require a wide-ranging set of information to

effectively conduct the “staffings”31 and status hearings that are fundamental to the

drug court process. Given the frequency of

these hearings, which are often held weekly, it is essential that information be collect-
Operational Drug Court

35

ed, disseminated, and weighed in a timely

fashion. Some events, such as a positive

drug test, an arrest, or a failure to appear

for a scheduled hearing, may call for team

members to take immediate action, rather

than waiting until the next scheduled status

hearing.

Infractions, Sanctions, Incentives,

and Rewards

Accountability is a central theme of drug

court judicial supervision. Strategies for

inducing program compliance include carefully tracking and weighing the severity of

infractions, imposing sanctions commensurate with inappropriate or unacceptable

behavior, and providing incentives that

reward overall progress and specific accomplishments. A chronicle of why, how, and

when sanctions and incentives are applied

is part of the overall treatment record and

is also a foundation for understanding the

effectiveness of various alternatives. By

comprehensively recording infractions and

the resultant sanctions, the drug court can

determine what works while also ensuring

that sanctions are applied in a bias-free

manner. 

Recording all punishments facilitates overall case management and imposition of

incremental sanctions; this comprehensive

approach, however, does not fully apply to

the recording of incentives. Typically, the

court will verbally commend small accomplishments. Announcement of a major

achievement is often accompanied by

applause and a handshake. These common

practices, serving as positive reinforcement, need not be recorded in the MIS.

Some drug courts have opted to employ a

team-approved schedule of sanctions that

sets out point values for various infractions

and defines corresponding penalties. Often,

participants who remain sanction-free for

a specified period advance to another program phase. Conversely, participants are

demoted if they accumulate a predetermined number of points. Many drug courts

that use a schedule of sanctions tell participants about the schedule when they enter

the program.

The Infractions, Sanctions, Incentives, 

and Rewards checklist at the back of this

chapter suggests MIS data items relating to

infractions, sanctions, incentives, and

rewards. Included are illustrative infractions and sanctions of varying severity.

Consequently, the section provides both a

framework for including an existing sanctions schedule in an MIS design and a starting point for implementing a sanctions

schedule to assist in case management. A

sample list of incentives and rewards is

provided both as a design tool for drug

court planners and as an assessment tool

for operational drug courts that want to

evaluate the ways in which they are providing encouragement and recognizing

accomplishments.

Appointments and Outcomes

Drug court clients lead complex lives. They

must appear for frequent status hearings

and drug tests, meet a schedule of fee payments, and keep myriad other appointments that are set by the court, case

managers, program coordinators, probation

officers, and treatment counselors. The

drug court team’s scheduling requirements

encompass not only clients’ appointments

but also certain events planned by drug

court team members without the client’s

prior knowledge, such as random drug

tests, field-administered drug tests, and

planned visits to verify employment,

attendance at school, or compliance with

curfew restrictions.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

36

rules, and imposition of a sanction may

ensue. Therefore, it is important that the

MIS record the disposition of all scheduled

events. For example, it should provide an

at-a-glance compilation of data on drug

tests, including the date of each urine test,

whether the test was positive or negative,

and, when appropriate, the level of the substance determined to be present.

A sample checklist for appointments and

outcomes is provided at the back of this

chapter.

Program Monitoring

Effective management requires continual

and aggressive collection and assessment of

programwide statistical data about day-today operations. The intention here is to

build a process for continually improving

the program and to provide a mechanism

for alerting the drug court team to changes

that are occurring broadly within the program. Unlike other drug court activities

discussed thus far, program monitoring

focuses on aggregate data rather than information about individual candidates and

participants. A solid monitoring apparatus

enables program administrators to describe

in quantitative terms what is going on in

the program, assess operations, review

operating data within the context of program goals, identify shortcomings or potential problems, and implement changes

while ensuring that resources are adequate

and appropriately used across the breadth

of the program. The generation of monitoring reports must be routine and frequent

enough that their extensive status information is both reasonably current and truly

reflective of operations.

The Program Monitoring Checklist at the

back of this chapter includes questions and

answers illustrative of program status and

achievement information. Topics will vary

In addition to client-specific appointments,

the drug court administers other schedules

related to the management and operation

of the drug court program. In this category

fall the court’s calendar, NA and/or AA

meetings, and group sessions that may precede or follow the status hearing calendar,

staffings, and other activities. The MIS can

help drug courts effectively manage these

scheduling tasks. 

The drug court may opt to accommodate

another set of commitments in the MIS

design: client obligations external to the

direct supervision of the court. For example, the client may have a hearing scheduled on an unrelated case in another court

or jurisdiction that could interfere with a

drug court obligation, or the client may

request that a certain time be left open for

personal reasons (e.g., to attend a child’s

school event).

The value of adding an appointment and

outcome component to the MIS depends

on the extent to which the drug court

team uses the system to plan schedules

and coordinate appointments. Scheduling

conflicts are minimized when all team

members can access and immediately

update client appointments and their own

diaries. Jurisdictions that opt to implement a comprehensive appointment and

outcome system enhance operational efficiency. Such a system also enables team

members to provide clients with a periodically updated calendar of appointments

and outstanding obligations (e.g., community service hours owed, fee payments in

arrears, date and amount of next scheduled fee payment).

Schedule commitments in a drug court

program are many and varied. Frequently,

they correspond to activities that are at the

heart of judicial supervision and treatment.

Failure to keep an appointment is often

considered an infraction of the program
Operational Drug Court

37

from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and those

suggested here should be modified to fit

each drug court’s goals, objectives, and

concerns.

A Word About Computer

Mapping

Government agencies at every level are

increasingly using mapping technology to

enhance service delivery. It is inevitable

that drug courts will adopt this technology

as an adjunct to or a module within the

MIS. For many drug court clients, the cost

or inconvenience of transportation to the

court, treatment sessions, AA and NA

meetings, and other appointments sometimes leads to sanctions or, worse yet, compels a client to drop out of the program.

Mapping can help to minimize travel issues

for drug court clients.

Mapping also provides an easy way to

identify the neighborhoods where clients

reside, work, go to school, or socialize.

This sort of information often contradicts

expectations and assumptions about where

services and supervision are most needed.

By recognizing clusters on a virtual pin

map, probation officers can perform more

efficiently, and law enforcement liaisons

can be more effective as the eyes and ears

of the court. Other, more creative uses

of this technology will become evident as

drug courts begin to move in this direction.

Exit Interviews and 

Postprogram Activities

The MIS should record reasons and impressions gleaned from exit interviews conducted with both dropouts and graduates to

inform drug court team members’ perception of the program and to influence future

decisions. The MIS should also document

several postprogram activities. Many jurisdictions have founded alumni groups that

provide continued support to program graduates. Participation in such groups and frequency of attendance should be recorded.

The MIS database is often a source of referrals for various services offered to active

clients. Similar information may be of

value when alumni seek aftercare. The outcome or impact evaluation, discussed

in the next chapter, strongly benefits when

postprogram tracking information—such as

recidivism, continued education, job history,

and other data about graduates—is captured in the MIS.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

38

Screening and Assessment

Instrument Checklist

❐ The MIS includes at least one screening

instrument that attempts to identify

candidates who meet the substance

abuse criteria defined for the program’s

target population.

❐ The MIS includes at least one comprehensive standardized assessment instrument that is appropriate for the target

population and available treatment

resources.

Comprehensive assessment instruments

❐ Addiction Severity Index (public

domain).

❐ Other__________.

Alcohol screening questionnaires

❐ CAGE (four questions, public domain).

❐ Short Michigan Alcohol Screening Test

(public domain).

❐ Michigan Alcohol Screening Test.

❐ Manson Evaluation. 

❐ Alcohol Dependence Scale.

❐ Other__________.

Substance abuse screening

❐ Substance Abuse Screening Instrument

(public domain).

❐ Offender Profile Index (public domain).

❐ Drug Abuse Screening Test.

❐ Chemical Dependency Assessment 

Profile.

❐ The Structured Clinical Interview for

Diagnosis.

❐ Quantitative Cocaine Inventory.

❐ TCU (Texas Christian University) Drug

Dependence Screen (public domain).

❐ Simple Screening Instrument (public

domain).

❐ Other__________.

Medical/Physical health (status and 

problems)

❐ General Health Rating Index.

❐ Other__________.

Psychological/Psychiatric problems 

(mental health status, diagnosis)

❐ Symptom Check List (SCL–90–R).

❐ Maudsley Neuroticism Scale.

❐ Beck Depression Inventory.

❐ Brief Symptom Inventory.

❐ IPAT (Institute for Personality and 

Ability Testing) Depression Scale.

❐ Structured Clinical Interview (SCID)

for DSM–III–R (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders

III–R).

❐ The Mini-SCID.

❐ Referral Decision Scale.

❐ Other__________.

Motivation

❐ Circumstances, Motivation, Readiness

and Suitability Scale.

❐ Stages of Change Readiness and 

Treatment Eagerness Scale.

❐ University of Rhode Island Change

Assessment Scale.

Academic skills

❐ The Wide Range Achievement Test. 

❐ Other__________.

Employment

❐ Index of Job Satisfaction. 

❐ Other__________.
Operational Drug Court

39

Social/Lifestyle

❐ Social Life Feelings Scale. 

❐ Social Intelligence Test.

❐ Other__________.

Family and marital relationships

❐ Family Environment Scale.

❐ Family Assessment Measure.

❐ Self-Report Family Inventory of the

Family Satisfaction Scale. 

❐ Family Crisis-Oriented Personal 

Evaluation Scales. 

❐ The ENRICH Inventory. 

❐ Dynamic Adjustment Scale. 

❐ Other__________.

Background Information Checklist

❐ History of physical/sexual/mental

abuse.

■ Age of client when abuse began.

■ Is client still around abuser?

■ Date of last abuse.

■ Frequency of abuse.

■ Relationship of client to the person

who is/was the abuser.

■ Approximate date of first abuse.

■ Is abuse still occurring?

■ Type of abuse client received/is

receiving.

■ Notes.

❐ History of suicide attempts:

■ Approximate date of last suicide

attempt.

■ Reason why the client attempted to

commit suicide.

■ Approximate number of total 

suicide attempts.

❐ In-program pregnancy and child 

delivery:

■ Number of previous pregnancies.

■ Number of previous childbirths.

■ Infant’s date of birth.

■ Infant’s birth weight.

■ Infant’s toxicology screen at birth.

■ Where and with whom the infant

will live.

Infractions, Sanctions, Incentives,

and Rewards Checklist

❐ The MIS records the dates of all

infractions.

❐ The MIS automatically calculates the

number of days/weeks/months elapsed

between program enrollment and each

infraction.

❐ The MIS automatically calculates the

number of days/weeks/months elapsed

between infraction occurrences.

❐ The MIS records dates when incentives

or rewards are given.

❐ The MIS automatically calculates the

number of days/weeks/months elapsed

between program enrollment and each

incentive or reward.

❐ The MIS automatically calculates the

number of days/weeks/months elapsed

between each incentive or reward.

❐ The MIS records all levels of infractions. Sample infractions follow:

■ Missed Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)

meeting(s) during report period.

■ Missed Narcotics Anonymous (NA)

meeting(s) during report period.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

40

■ Arrived late for scheduled drug test.

■ Arrived late for treatment session.

■ Did not complete homework.

■ Did not provide a sponsor letter.

■ Failed to appear for work and did

not have an excuse.

■ Unemployed.

■ Failed to seek employment as

directed by the court.

■ Failed to enroll in an education or

job training program as directed by

the court. 

■ Failed to pay scheduled fees.

■ Partially paid fees without authorization of the court.

■ Missed probation office visit.

■ Violated home detention.

■ Violated electronic monitoring.

■ Missed status hearing—notified 

case manager/court coordinator

beforehand (first occurrence).

■ Fulfilled partial community service

requirement within allowed time

(first community service sanction).

■ Discourteous to court or other 

drug court team member (first

occurrence).

■ Wore inappropriate attire to status

hearing (first occurrence).

■ Forged AA or NA meeting attendance slip.

■ Admitted use prior to failing drug

test.

■ Admitted use prior to failing alcohol

test.

■ Missed treatment session without

prior excuse.

■ Missed scheduled drug test.

■ Violated curfew.

■ Fired from job.

■ Left employment without a 

replacement job.

■ Observed in a known drugtrafficking area.

■ Observed in a premises that serves

alcohol; presence was not job related and was without prior approval.

■ Positive drug test (without prior

admission; first occurrence).

■ Positive alcohol test (without prior

admission; first occurrence).

■ Delayed taking drug test.

■ Absent from program for less than 

5 days and voluntarily returned.

■ Admitted use prior to second failed

drug test.

■ Admitted use prior to second failed

alcohol test.

■ Missed status hearing—notified case

manager/court coordinator beforehand (second occurrence).

■ Failed to perform any community

service within allowed time (first

community service sanction).

■ Fulfilled partial community service

requirement within allowed time

(second or subsequent community

service sanction).

■ Discourteous to court or other 

drug court team member (second 

or subsequent occurrence).
Operational Drug Court

41

■ Wore inappropriate attire to status

hearing (second or subsequent

occurrence).

■ Attempted to falsify drug test 

sample.

■ Substituted or tampered with urine

sample.

■ Missed scheduled drug test (second

or subsequent occurrence).

■ Positive drug test (without prior

admission; second occurrence).

■ Positive alcohol test (without prior

admission; second occurrence).

■ Admitted use prior to third or 

subsequent failed drug test.

■ Admitted use prior to third or 

subsequent failed alcohol test.

■ Absent from program for more than

5 days. 

■ Failed to complete inpatient or

halfway house program.

■ Arrested (nonviolent misdemeanor

or lesser offense).

■ Arrested (nonviolent felony).

■ Arrested for a violent offense.

❐ The MIS records all judicially imposed

sanctions. Sample sanctions follow:

■ Verbal reprimand.

■ Written report (e.g., explain why

action or behavior was inappropriate

or irresponsible).

■ Loss of a privilege.

■ Community service (8 or fewer

hours).

■ Increase in NA meetings.

■ Increase in AA meetings.

■ Increase in outpatient individual

and/or group sessions.

■ Increase in drug testing.

■ Placement in jury box for duration

of day’s calendar.

■ Placement in holding cell for duration of day’s calendar.

■ Electronic monitoring.

■ Home detention.

■ Jail (less than 24 hours).

■ Extension of time before client 

can advance to another phase or

graduate.

■ Community service (up to 24

hours).

■ Increase in NA/AA meetings and

submission of a written report following each meeting.

■ Increase in status hearings.

■ Jail (up to 10 days).

■ Community service (up to 

60 hours).

■ Phase demotion.

■ Jail (up to 30 days).

■ Inpatient placement.

■ Participant required to enter guilty

plea (in pre-plea courts, acceptance

of plea may be held in abeyance or

participant may be allowed to withdraw plea).

■ Discharged from program.

❐ The MIS has a provision for noting

punitive action taken by outpatient

treatment providers. 
Supporting the Drug Court Process

42

❐ The MIS has a provision for noting

punitive action taken by residential

treatment providers.

❐ The MIS has a provision for noting

punitive action taken by probation 

staff supervising client.

❐ The MIS has a provision for noting

punitive action taken by case manager

supervising client.

❐ The MIS selectively records incentives

or rewards given to program participants. Sample incentives and rewards

follow:

■ Less restrictive curfew.

■ Removal of curfew.

■ Reduction in required AA meetings.

■ Reduction in required NA meetings.

■ Immediate release after status hearing (not required to sit through

whole drug court calendar).

■ Placement in a group whose status

hearings are called early in the

day’s calendar.

■ Less frequent scheduled drug tests.

■ Participant can serve as a program

representative speaker.

■ Participant can participate in a

court-sponsored recreational event.

■ Gift of tickets to a recreational,

entertainment, or social event.

■ Certificates for restaurants, for 

participant’s own use or for a 

family event.

■ Certificates for clothing.

■ Financial support for education, job

training, or other activity consistent

with objectives of the program but

not affordable for the client.

■ Permission to temporarily leave

jurisdiction for cause at the request

of the participant.

■ Advancement in a multiphase 

program.

■ Invitation to join alumni group.

■ Graduation.

❐ The MIS documents when each requirement for advancement to another phase

or level is met.

❐ The MIS records dates of advancement

in multiphase programs.

❐ The MIS documents when each graduation requirement is met.

❐ The MIS records the date the drug

court team certifies that all graduation

requirements have been met, as well as

the reason for any decision to defer

graduation.

❐ The MIS records the date of graduation.

Appointments and Outcomes

Checklist

❐ The MIS automatically generates the

case calendar for staffings.

❐ The MIS automatically generates the

status hearing calendar.

❐ The MIS can be used to generate lists 

of scheduled attendees for group

activities:

■ Group meetings.

■ Other _____.

❐ The MIS records drug test appointments and dispositional information:

■ Date and time of test/sample taken:

● Scheduled.

● Random.
Operational Drug Court

43

● Confirmation.

■ Location of test:

● Court.

● Treatment.

● Jail.

● Field.

■ Missed appointment—not excused.

■ Missed appointment—excused.

■ Late for appointment—not excused.

■ Late for appointment—excused.

■ Refused to provide sample.

■ Attempted to submit fraudulent

sample or tamper with test process.

■ Screening panel/drugs tested:

● Alcohol.

● Amphetamines (e.g., methamphetamine, MDA, MDMA).

● Barbiturates.

● Benzodiazepine.

● Cocaine.

● Marijuana (THC).

● Methadone.

● Methaqualone.

● Opiates (e.g., heroin, morphine,

codeine).

● PCP (e.g., phencyclidine, PCDE,

PCM).

● Propoxyphene (e.g., Darvon).

■ Date and time the test results were

determined.

■ Date and time the test results were

entered in the MIS.

■ Test results:

● Positive:

– Level.

● Negative.

■ Notes _____.

❐ The MIS records status hearing

appointments and dispositions:

■ Date and time scheduled.

■ Failure to appear—excused.

■ Failure to appear—not excused.

● Warrant issued.

❐ The MIS records fees assessed and

payable to the court:

■ Frequency and amount of scheduled

payments.

■ Payment dates and amounts.

■ Current with payments, or amount

in arrears?

■ Total amount of payments to date.

■ Court-ordered change in frequency

or amount of payments is logged.

❐ The MIS records fees payable to treatment providers:

■ Frequency and amount of scheduled

payments.

■ Current with payments, or amount

in arrears?

❐ The MIS records schedule and dispositional information about other pending

nondrug court cases:

■ Date, time, court of scheduled

appearance.

■ Judge.

■ Purpose of appearance.

■ Nature of charges or pending matter

(e.g., civil action, family court).
Supporting the Drug Court Process

44

■ Disposition of appearance.

■ Date and disposition of case 

information.

❐ The MIS records treatment appointments and dispositions:

■ Date and time scheduled.

■ Failure to appear—excused.

■ Failure to appear—not excused.

❐ The MIS records scheduled community

service:

■ Total number of hours required.

■ Date by which community service

requirement must be satisfied.

■ Date, time, number of hours 

scheduled.

■ Entity and location.

■ Contact name and telephone 

number of person who can verify.

■ Appointment kept.

■ Number of hours completed.

■ Cumulative number of community

service hours completed.

■ Failed to appear.

❐ The MIS records supervisory case 

management contacts (e.g., probation

supervision):

■ Date, time, location of scheduled

supervision.

■ Failed to appear—excused.

■ Failed to appear—not excused.

■ Could not be located.

❐ The MIS records drug court law

enforcement liaison contacts:

■ Date, time, location of contact.

■ Could not be located.

❐ The MIS records client’s personal commitments to avoid conflicts with scheduled drug court events and to provide

an incentive for complying with drug

court appointments.

Program Monitoring Checklist

❐ The MIS provides aggregate data and

generates summary reports about 

program participants.

❐ The MIS provides aggregate data and

generates summary reports about 

program performance.

❐ The MIS periodically generates reports

that answer the following questions:

■ What attributes of the drug court

participant population correspond

to characteristics of the court’s

planned target population?

■ How many clients are enrolled?

■ What is the average and mean 

duration of client enrollment in 

the program?

■ How many males and females are

enrolled?

■ What is the ethnic breakdown of

the client population?

● African-American.

● Hispanic/Latino.

● Asian/Pacific Islander.

● Native American.

● Alaska Native.

● Caucasian.

● Other_________.

■ How many clients had felony

charges when referred to the drug

court?
Operational Drug Court

45

■ How many clients had misdemeanor

charges when referred to the drug

court?

■ What is the criminal history profile

of the client population (number

of clients categorized by number

of prior felony convictions, prior

felony arrests, prior misdemeanor

convictions, and prior misdemeanor

arrests)?

■ Is drug testing being performed as

envisioned in the plan for the

court?

● Frequency of testing.

● Cumulative and average number

of tests of the client population.

● Types of tests conducted.

■ To what extent is the combination

of judicial supervision and treatment successfully retaining participants in the program?

● Percentage and number of

eligible clients enrolled in the

program.

● Number of graduates.

● Number of clients voluntarily

separated from the program

since its inception.

● Average duration of program participation before voluntary separation from the program.

● Number of voluntary program

separations by program phase.

● Number of clients involuntarily

separated from the program

since its inception.

■ Have active program participants

been arrested on new charges?

■ What is the total number of arrests

since program inception? 

● Number of drug offenses.

● Number of nondrug felony

arrests.

● Number of nondrug misdemeanor arrests.

● Number of domestic abuse

arrests.

■ What is the total number of arrests

of the current program population?

● Number of drug offenses.

● Number of nondrug felony

arrests.

● Number of nondrug misdemeanor arrests.

● Number of domestic abuse

arrests.

■ Is the drug court having a beneficial

impact on the life circumstances of

participants?

● Percentage of clients employed.

● Percentage of clients enrolled in

school.

● Percentage of clients enrolled in

job training.

● Number of drug-free babies 

born to clients since program

inception.

● Number of clients regaining 

custody of children since 

program inception.
47

V.

Evaluation

valuation is an essential tool for developing,

managing, modifying,

sustaining, and justifying a drug court program. An objective evaluation that addresses stakeholder questions

and concerns will help secure funds, win

community support, and facilitate the passage of legislation. Several types of evaluations are commonly employed to assess the

operational effectiveness and success of drug

court programs. These include process and

outcome evaluations. Comprehensive quality evaluations are frequently beyond the

expertise of the drug team. An outside evaluator familiar with the evaluation process,

criminal justice, and treatment can be an

invaluable asset. Although the cost of evaluation depends on many factors and varies

widely, costs generally are minimized when

■ The evaluator is identified and consulted early enough to participate in the

planning of the drug court. The sooner

the evaluator is engaged, the more 

likely it is that key questions will 

be identified and answers will be

understood.

■ Data collection within the MIS not only

supports day-to-day operations, but

also is designed with evaluation utility

in mind. 

■ Data are collected in a format the evaluator can use; the data do not have

to be converted to another format or

manually manipulated.

DCPO Implementation Grants

DCPO implementation grant recipients are

required to conduct both a process evaluation and an outcome evaluation and to collect and maintain the key data necessary

to support both types of evaluations.32 In

their applications, grant applicants must

include an MIS plan that, among other

things, encompasses methods for collecting, storing, and maintaining adequate data

to support the drug court’s operations and

its process and outcome evaluations.33

E
Supporting the Drug Court Process

48

Outcome or Impact Evaluation

The outcome or impact evaluation primarily assesses the effect of the drug court program on the lives of participants after they

leave the program, as compared with outcomes associated with more traditional justice processing. (Lifestyle changes of active

clients may also be considered in an evaluation.) At the core of these evaluations are

changes in criminal involvement, recidivism, and substance abuse and progress

toward a positive lifestyle. This evaluation

process allows drug courts to determine

and report the extent to which graduates—

and often offenders who are still active in

the program—have progressed toward program goals and objectives and also to judge

the effectiveness of various services for the

population served. This type of evaluation

takes a long-term view, as compared with

the relatively short-term view of a process

evaluation or ongoing program monitoring. 

Much of the information that is critical for

conducting both process and impact evaluations is collected and routinely entered

into the MIS as part of documenting tasks

and decisions in the areas of program eligibility, screening, assessment, ongoing case

management, and, most importantly, program monitoring. In short, nothing may be

out of bounds when trying to draw conclusions about how things are working and

how well they are working. Policymakers,

legislators, funding sources, court administrators, drug court team members, and

community advisory and other interested

public groups may all have questions about

the effectiveness of the drug court program.

As these concerns are identified, it may 

be appropriate to lay the foundation for a

response through the design or subsequent

modification of the MIS.

As with process evaluation, early identification and involvement of the evaluator are

important for outcome evaluations. The

Process or Operations

Evaluation

The process or operations evaluation,

which typically builds on program monitoring, carefully documents how the program

is currently operating and contrasts that

with how it was intended to operate. This

assessment chronicles the history of program development and changes over time

and identifies the specific elements of the

program, including participant characteristics, program services, and the extent to

which services are matched with and used

by participants. Questions answered by the

process evaluation include

■ Is the drug court program meeting its

planned operational and administrative

goals?

■ Is the program serving the intended 

target population?

■ Do screening and assessment procedures yield the optimal number of candidates without introducing unfair or

inappropriate exclusions?

■ Is the provision of services consistent

with the needs of program participants?

A process evaluation may be broader in

scope and answer many other questions.

For example, one of the underlying goals

established early in the planning process

might be that creating a drug court will

benefit calendars in other court areas and

facilitate better use of courtroom space. A

primary objective of the process evaluation

is to look at whether the drug court program is meeting its goals—the very goals

that determine the framework for the

process evaluation. Program records, as

recorded in the MIS, play an important role

in the process evaluation. However, the

evaluation may include other components,

such as direct observation of program services, surveys, and interviews of stakeholders, clients, and staff.
Evaluation

49

The drug court MIS, because it documents

an array of activities, is especially useful in

identifying program elements amenable to

cost analysis and determining whether their

costs are above those usually experienced

when defendants are processed without a

drug court option. In this way, analysts can

identify costs that are unique to the drug

court program and that, when added

together, constitute the program’s total

price. The MIS provides documentation of

arrests, improved job skills, employment,

enhanced education, and improved health

and family circumstances. From this information, analysts can extrapolate diverse

sources of fiscal savings or revenue generation. For example, reduced use of health

care services, increased legal earnings and

tax revenues, decreased need for public

support, and reduced use of child welfare

and foster care services all imply quantifiable fiscal benefits for the community.

Drug Court Grantee Data

Collection Survey

Prior to March 15, 2002, all recipients of

grants awarded by DCPO were required to

submit the grantee data collection survey

on a semiannual basis “to ensure that

grantees are collecting critical information

about their drug court programs for evaluation purposes and to assist in the national

evaluation of drug courts.”34 The survey

instrument expired in March 2002; therefore, grantees no longer need to submit this

data collection survey to DCPO. The latest

survey is presented in appendix 3 as an

example of a minimum data set that may

be useful to drug court programs.

evaluator can help to ensure that the MIS

is optimized for the planned evaluation and

can also focus on the source of information

that will be needed. For instance, there are

various definitions of recidivism and multiple sources of data relevant to recidivism.

If the research design intends to use FBI

reports to track participants’ arrest activities during and after program enrollment,

the MIS database should include each

offender’s FBI identification number. If this

research is to be limited to or supplemented by information from the agency that

houses the State’s criminal records repository, the fingerprint-based State identification number should be included in the

database.

Cost Analysis

Perhaps the most fundamental consideration in determining whether a drug court

program merits sustained or increased

funding is an economic analysis that contrasts costs and benefits. What is the monetary cost per program participant per year?

How does this compare with the presumed

costs for probation or incarceration and the

societal costs associated with crime, poor

health, and other consequences of continued drug use? Key to effective cost-benefit

analysis is a clear understanding of the

question or questions to be answered. For

example, the information needed to analyze

a drug court program’s overall costs and

benefits for a local jurisdiction is quite different from the information needed when

the analysis is limited to the perspective of

the judicial branch. 
51

Appendix 1

Sample Consent Form for Disclosure of 

Confidential Substance Abuse Information*

Sample Qualified Service 

Organization Agreement*

Sample Intergovernmental Agreement 

and Memorandum of Understanding 

Between Drug Court Team Partners*

* Excerpted from DCPO’s Fiscal Year 2002 Program Application Kit.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

52

SAMPLE

CONSENT FOR DISCLOSURE OF CONFIDENTIAL SUBSTANCE ABUSE 

INFORMATION: DRUG COURT REFERRAL

I, defendant’s name, hereby consent to communication between treatment program’s name and Judge name of presiding judge, name of prosecuting attorney or prosecutor’s office, name of defense attorney, the probation department of

jurisdiction, (and/or other referring agency), (other).

The purpose of and need for this disclosure is to inform the court and other above-named parties of my eligibility

and/or acceptability for substance abuse treatment services and my treatment attendance, prognosis, compliance,

and progress in accordance with the drug court monitoring criteria.

Disclosure of this confidential information may be made only as necessary for and pertinent to hearings and/or reports

concerning charges, docket number, indictment number.

I understand that this consent will remain in effect and cannot be revoked by me until there has been a formal and

effective termination of my involvement with the drug court for the case named above, such as the discontinuation of

all court (and/or, where relevant, probation) supervision upon my successful completion of the drug court requirements

or upon sentencing for violating the terms of my drug court involvement (and/or, where relevant, probation).

I understand that any disclosure made is bound by Part 2 of Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which governs

the confidentiality of substance abuse patient (or client) records, and that recipients of this information may redisclose it

only in connection with their official duties.

Date Signature of Defendant

Signature of parent, guardian, or representative (if required)
Appendix 1

53

QUALIFIED SERVICE ORGANIZATION AGREEMENT

Between

PIONEER CLAIM MANAGEMENT and 

OSBORNE TREATMENT SERVICES, INC.

PIONEER CLAIM MANAGEMENT (PIONEER) and OSBORNE TREATMENT SERVICES, INC. (OSBORNE) hereby enter into

a Qualified Service Organization Agreement whereby PIONEER agrees to provide liability insurance representation,

including contracting for legal services, to OSBORNE in the matter of Luis Martinez vs. 809 Realty Corp. and Osborne

Treatment Services, Inc. Furthermore, PIONEER

1) acknowledges that in receiving, storing, processing, or otherwise dealing with any information from OSBORNE about

any client of OSBORNE, past or present, PIONEER and all of its agents and assigns are fully bound by the provisions

of the Federal laws and regulations governing the confidentiality of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Patient Records (42

United States Code Section 290dd-2 and 42 Code of Federal Regulations Part 2); and

2) undertakes to resist, in judicial proceedings if necessary, any efforts to obtain access to information pertaining to

any OSBORNE client otherwise than as expressly provided for in the Federal confidentiality regulations (42 CFR

Part 2).

Executed this day of _____________________, 1998

Signature of PIONEER Officer Signature of OSBORNE Officer

Print Name of Signing Officer Print Name of Signing Officer

Title of Signing Officer Title of Signing Officer

PIONEER CLAIM MANAGEMENT OSBORNE TREATMENT SERVICES, INC.

195 Lake Louise Marie Road 809 Westchester Avenue

Rock Hill, NY 12775 Bronx, NY 10455
Supporting the Drug Court Process

54

PARISH OF RAPIDES, STATE OF LOUISIANA

INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT

This Intergovernmental Agreement is entered into between the following parties:

(1) The RAPIDES PARISH POLICE JURY, a constitutional political subdivision of the State of Louisiana, domiciled in

Alexandria, Rapides Parish, Louisiana (hereinafter referred to as “PARISH”), acting through Donald Wilmore, duly elected

President of the Rapides Parish Police Jury; and

(2) The NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT, a constitutional political subdivision of the State of Louisiana, domiciled in the

Parish of Rapides (hereinafter referred to as “DISTRICT COURT”), acting by and through B. Dexter Ryland, Chief District

Judge; and

(3) The NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY, a constitutional political subdivision of the State of Louisiana, domiciled in

the Parish of Rapides (hereinafter referred to as “DISTRICT ATTORNEY”) acting by and through the duly elected Ninth

Judicial District Attorney, Charles F. Wagner.

RECITALS

WHEREAS, all of the above parties are concerned about the frequency of illegal drug use and the related criminal 

activity which is occurring in our local community; 

WHEREAS, all of the above parties have declared that pro-active intervention is an appropriate recognized means

of curtailing the problem of drug abuse in our community; 

WHEREAS, a Drug Treatment Court (hereinafter referred to as the “DRUG COURT”) has been established by the 

DISTRICT COURT to address the problem; 

WHEREAS, the POLICE JURY has requested and received $379,228.00 for the operation of the DRUG COURT pursuant

to Grant number 98–DC–VX–0113 from the U.S. Department of Justice; 

WHEREAS, the DISTRICT ATTORNEY and the DISTRICT COURT have agreed to participate in the operation of the DRUG

COURT and to provide in-kind services for the above named grant, along with in-kind services from the Rapides Parish

Clerk of Court, Rapides Parish Public Defender’s Office and the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, Division of

Probation and Parole and the State of Louisiana, Department of Health and Hospitals, Office for Addictive Disorders, for

the above named grant; 

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that all parties named above, in conformity with La. R. S. 33:1321, et seq., hereby

enter into the following intergovernmental agreement:

I.

The DISTRICT COURT agrees to operate and supervise DRUG COURT pursuant to written rules and regulations promulgated by the DISTRICT COURT.

II.

With the exception of those personnel provided by the DISTRICT COURT, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, Clerk of Court, Public

Defender’s Office, Department of Public Safety and Corrections, Division of Probation and Parole and the State of

Louisiana, Department of Health and Hospitals, Office for Addictive Disorders, all other employees hired to provide

services under this agreement and pursuant to grant funds shall be employees of the PARISH.
Appendix 1

55

III.

The PARISH agrees to act as fiscal agent for the DISTRICT COURT’s DRUG COURT for all monies received from the U.S.

Department of Justice Grant # 98–DC–VX–0113 and to manage, operate and expend said funds according to the rules

and regulations of the U.S. Department of Justice Grant # 98–DC–VX–0113, including but not limited to all necessary

reports, documents, and records of any kind so required thereby. The DRUG COURT, prior to seeking reimbursement

from the PARISH for funds the PARISH acts as fiscal agent, shall certify that all of its operational expenditures are in

compliance with the rules and regulations of the above named grant.

IV.

The parties agree that each DRUG COURT participant in Phase I, II, and III (and Phase IV misdemeanor cases only) shall

be assessed $30.00 per month for probation supervision/drug screening fees that will be collected by the DRUG COURT

administrator who will tender these funds to the PARISH who will then deposit them in a separate account. Expenditures from this account shall only be legitimate expenditures for the use and benefit of the DRUG COURT, including but

not limited to office expenses, educational and training materials, training expenses, drug testing expenses, counselor

certification, etc. In seeking payment, the DISTRICT COURT shall certify in writing that the requested expense is a legitimate expense for the use and/or benefit of the DRUG COURT.

V.

Should the DISTRICT COURT decide to terminate the DRUG COURT, any funds remaining on deposit in the probation

supervision/drug screening fund shall be continued to be maintained in this separate account and used solely for

the psychiatric/psychological/family counseling diagnosis or testing of substance abuse or mental illness/disorders

requested by any civil, criminal, or juvenile division of the Ninth Judicial District Court. The District Court sitting en

blanc, shall decide the policy and procedures on how these funds will be administered and expended.

THUS DONE AND SIGNED on this _________ day of _________________, 1999, in Alexandria, Rapides Parish,

Louisiana, before the undersigned witnesses after due reading of the whole.

WITNESSES: RAPIDES PARISH POLICE JURY

_________________________ BY:_________________________

DONALD WILMORE

_________________________ President, Rapides Parish

Police Jury
Supporting the Drug Court Process

56

_________________________

NOTARY PUBLIC

WITNESSES: STATE OF LOUISIANA

_________________________ BY:_________________________

CHARLES F. WAGNER

_________________________ District Attorney, Rapides

Parish

_________________________

NOTARY PUBLIC

WITNESSES: NINTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT

_________________________ BY:_________________________

B. DEXTER RYLAND

_________________________ Chief District Judge, Ninth

District Court

_________________________

NOTARY PUBLIC

PARISH OF RAPIDES STATE OF LOUISIANA

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING 

NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT 

DRUG COURT DIVISION

This Memorandum of Understanding is entered into between the State of Louisiana, through Charles F. Wagner, District

Attorney (DA); the Rapides Parish Public Defender’s Office (PD), through Kenneth Rodenbeck, Director, and the Ninth

Judicial District Court, through B. Dexter Ryland, Chief Judge, who agree that the following procedures will apply to all

cases allotted to Division “X”, the Drug Court division of the Ninth Judicial District Court:

(1) Except as provided in paragraph (4) below, the DA shall provide to the PD at arraignment a copy of the defendant’s

(a) bill of information/indictment, (b) complete case file submitted to the DA [excluding any attorney work product or

privileged information, especially that privileged by La. C.E. article 514], (c) “report of arrest and prosecution (RAP)

sheet,” (d) original completed pretrial memorandum as required by Rule XXIV of the Ninth Judicial District Court, and

in appropriate cases (e) the Notice of Intent to Introduce Scientific Evidence as provided by La. R. S. 15:499.1, with

attached lab report.

(2) Upon receipt of the above, the arraigning PD shall sign a joint stipulation on a form approved by the Court which

states that this information will satisfy the defendant’s Motion for Discovery and Inspection under C.Cr.P. articles

716–723, the Motion for Bill of Particulars under La. C.Cr.P. article 484–485 and the Motion for Preliminary Examination

as provided by Louisiana Constitution Article I, Section 14 and La. C.Cr.P. articles 291–298. However, the PD reserves

the right to file motions for the Court to determine the sufficiency of the State’s response and any other motions provided by law.

(3) After the State of Louisiana has complied with the above discovery requirements at arraignment, the following

delays will apply:

(a) The PD shall file all pretrial motions within the delays provided by La. C.Cr.P. article 521; 

(b) The State of Louisiana shall file all pretrial motions within fifteen days after the expiration of delays in paragraph

3(a) above; 

(c) All pretrial motions shall be set for hearing on the motion date [Monday] for Division “X” cases closest to the

defendant’s trial date; 

(d) The pretrial conference shall be set on the Division “X” pretrial date [Wednesday] closest to the defendant’s trial

date. Unless excused by the Court, the defendant shall be present at the pretrial conference and after the pretrial, the public defender shall discuss with the defendant the matters discussed at the pretrial conference, the

sentence the defendant will receive upon a plea of guilty to the charge, and determine if the defendant desires
Appendix 1

57

to enter a plea of guilty or proceed to trial. The Public Defender’s appearance before the Court will not be

excused until he informs the Court of the defendant’s choice. If the defendant desires to enter a plea of guilty,

he may do so on the date of the pretrial conference or on the appropriate plea date discussed in (e) below; 

(e) The plea date for the defendant shall be set on the Division “X” plea date [Friday] closest to the defendant’s

trial date. The PD shall notify the Court of the defendant’s desire to enter a plea of guilty prior to the plea date.

The defendant is only required to be present if (s)he desires to enter a plea of guilty to the pretrial sentence

which will expire if the defendant does not plead guilty on his/her plea date.

(f) Calendar permitting, the State of Louisiana will set all jury trials at least two months after arraignment.

(4) The DA and PD agree that “open file” discovery as outlined above is the preferred method of discovery in Division

“X” cases and that the DA will comply with the procedure in all cases except in limited situations where trial strategy

would dictate otherwise. In those cases, the DA shall provide to the PD at arraignment a written notice of: (a) the DA’s

refusal to enter into informal discovery as outlined above and (b) a request for the defendant to file formal discovery

motions as provided by law.

(5) The Court shall adopt a Division “X” calendar in compliance with this Memorandum of Understanding and distribute

it to the State of Louisiana, the Clerk of Court, and all members of the PD.

(6) The District Attorney recognizes the importance of those who are convicted, on bond or being detained without

bond, being candid with Drug Court personnel regarding their alcohol/drug usage as well as their participation/

treatment in other programs. Therefore, the District Attorney agrees to the following policy concerning statements by

any person being screened for Drug Court eligibility or any person who has entered a plea of guilty to a criminal

charge and is being treated in the Drug Court treatment program:

(a) Any information obtained by a Drug Court counselor during the screening process shall be confidential, shall

not be revealed to any person or as evidence in a pending case against the client being screened; however, the

screening counselor shall inform the Court, the defense attorney, and the District Attorney of the results of their

examination as to whether the defendant has a substance abuse addiction and any treatment recommendation(s); 

(b) Admissions of alcohol/drug usage or a positive screen for alcohol or drug usage will not be used by the DA to

file new charges of possession of a controlled dangerous substance but can be used by the Court in imposing

sanctions or revoking the defendant’s probation.

(7) This Memorandum of Understanding shall be effective on October 1, 1999, and filed with the Clerk of Court, maintained with all other Drug Court documents and available for inspection during regular business hours.

(8) Failure to comply with the terms and conditions of this policy by any member of the District Attorney’s Office or the

Rapides Parish Public Defense Office may subject the attorney to the penalties as provided by La. C.Cr.P. article 16, et

seq or La. C.Cr.P. article 729.5.

Alexandria, Louisiana, this_________day of__________________, 1999.

STATE OF LOUISIANA RAPIDES PARISH

PUBLIC DEFENDER

BY:_________________________ BY:_________________________

CHARLES F. WAGNER KENNETH RODENBECK

District Attorney Director

NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT

BY:_________________________

B. DEXTER RYLAND

Chief District Judge
59

Appendix 2

Drug Courts Program 

Office Implementation Grant 

Management Information System, 

Process Evaluation, and

Outcome Evaluation Requirements*

* Excerpted from DCPO’s Fiscal Year 2002 Program Application Kit.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

60

Evaluation and Management

Information System Plan 

(8–12 pages)

Grant recipients are required to conduct

both a process and an outcome evaluation,

and to collect and maintain the key data

necessary to support both types of evaluations. Grant recipients are required to submit a final evaluation and/or MIS plan prior

to accessing funding for these activities. See

page 60 [of DCPO’s Fiscal Year 2002 Program Application Kit] regarding Human

Subject Testing and Information Technology

requirements. 

Applicants must identify the independent

evaluator who will assist the drug court in

conducting the process and outcome evaluations. If the evaluator has not been identified, describe the steps the drug court will

take to solicit and select the evaluator, and

how the drug court will work with the evaluator to design the data collection process,

collect and maintain the data, analyze the

data, and prepare evaluation reports. Following is some specific guidance regarding

information which must be included in this

section of your application. 

MIS Plan

1. Describe the methods planned for collecting, storing, and maintaining adequate data

to support the drug court’s operations as well

as the process and outcome evaluations. 

2. Describe the nature of the planned MIS,

including staffing, hardware and software,

standardized data collection forms, schedules of data entry, routine reports, quality

assurance procedures, and statistical analysis capabilities. 

3. Discuss how data related to court operations, individual participant characteristics

and behaviors, and treatment services will

be collected, maintained, and integrated

into existing automated systems. 

4. Discuss plans for data sharing agreements with treatment service providers and

other agencies. Please note that all applicants are expected to adhere to applicable

local, State, and Federal confidentiality

guidelines and requirements regarding

treatment program records. 

Process Evaluation

The data collection plan must enable the

drug court to summarize its basic operations and services delivery, client characteristics, and treatment outcomes. 

1. Describe how the evaluation will 

include both qualitative and quantitative

information. 

2. Describe the minimum data set that will

be used (see appendix D for suggestions [in

DCPO’s Fiscal Year 2002 Program Application Kit]) and how it will allow the drug

court to describe the target population, the

screening and assessment process, intake

flow, sanctions and incentives, drug test

results, in-program rearrests, number of status hearings, failure and completion rates,

services delivered, and referrals made. 

3. Provide information on how the MIS will

be flexible enough to allow the evaluator to

analyze the following by participant characteristics and other factors: program services received, drug test results, in-program

rearrests, length of time in the program,

sanctions and rewards, number of court

hearings, and completion rates. 

4. Describe the specific data elements to

be collected and analyzed for the process

evaluation, and how these data will be used

for program operation and management.

The Drug Court Grantee Data Collection

Survey (see appendix 3) can be used as

a starting point to identify these data elements. Appendix D (Process Evaluations
Appendix 2

61

and MIS)(see DCPO’s Fiscal Year 2002

Program Application Kit), also contains

useful information to guide the development of a proposed data collection plan.

5. Describe how the process evaluation will

assist the drug court in assessing the effectiveness of its operations and ability to meet

its goals and objectives, and how the findings could be used to change and improve

the court’s operations. 

The process plan should incorporate measurable program goals and objectives. Examples include number and type of target

population screened and admitted, program

completion rates, average time in program

(or 1-year retention rates, cohort-based),

percentage of drug tests that are negative,

percentage of participants rearrested during program participation, amount and

type of services received, and percentage

of participants employed after 1 year. 

Outcome Evaluation

A feasible plan for collecting and analyzing

the impact of the drug court on 1-year postprogram recidivism outcomes is required. 

1. Describe the plan for collecting data on

rearrests, reconviction, and/or reincarceration for a period of 1 year following drug

court completion (or dropout). Applicants

are encouraged to consider the collection

of recidivism data for longer than a 1-year

postprogram period. In addition, the

identification of sources of data for other 

postprogram outcomes (such as drug use,

employment and earnings, health care,

drug treatment participation, etc.) is

strongly encouraged (but not required)

and should be described if available.

2. Describe the sources of data on rearrests

and other outcome measures, and how these

measures will be defined. It is recommended

that individual rather than aggregate outcome data be collected and maintained. The

Drug Court Grantee Data Collection Survey

(see appendix 3) can be used as a starting

point to identify these data elements.

3. Identify and justify a comparison group

for measuring the relative change in postprogram recidivism outcome measures.

The comparison group should be as similar

as possible to the drug court participants. 

4. Describe the procedures for collecting

comparison group data on court processing, individual characteristics, rearrests,

and other outcome measures if available. 

5. Describe the specific data elements to

be collected and analyzed for the outcome

evaluation, and how these data will be used

for program operation and management. 

6. Describe how the outcome evaluation

will assist the drug court in assessing the

effectiveness of its operations, and how

the findings could be used to change and

improve the court’s operations. 

7. Describe the products expected from

the evaluation. 
63

Appendix 3

Drug Court Grantee

Reporting Requirements and 

Data Collection Survey*

* Excerpted from DCPO’s Fiscal Year 2002 Program Application Kit. The survey instrument expired in March 2002; therefore,

grantees no longer need to submit this data collection survey to DCPO. The latest survey is presented here as an example of

a minimum data set that may be useful to drug court programs.
Supporting the Drug Court Process

64

Drug Court Grantee Reporting

Requirements 

All recipients of Drug Courts Program Office

grants are required to submit the following

reports:

Financial Status Reports (SF 269A) 

Financial status reports (SF 269A) are due

quarterly on the 45th day following the end

of each calendar quarter. A report must be

submitted every quarter the award is

active, even if there has been no financial

activity during the reporting period. The

final report is due 120 days after the end

date of the award. The Office of the Comptroller will provide a copy of this form in

the initial award package. Future awards

and fund drawdowns will be withheld if

financial status reports are delinquent. 

Categorical Assistance Progress Reports

Recipients of funding are required to submit

an initial and then semiannual progress

report. The progress reports describe activities during the reporting period and the status or accomplishment of objectives as set

forth in the approved application for funding. Progress reports must be submitted

within 30 days after the end of the reporting

periods, which are January 1 through June

30 and July 1 through December 31 for the

life of the award. A final report, which provides a summary of progress toward achieving the goals and objectives of the award,

significant results, and any products developed under the award, is due 120 days after

the end date of the award. The Office of the

Comptroller will provide a copy of this form

in the initial award package. 

Drug Court Grantee Data Collection Survey

To ensure that grant recipients are collecting critical information about their drug

court programs for evaluation purposes and

to assist in the national evaluation of drug

courts, grant recipients that receive funds to

implement or enhance a drug court are

required to submit the Drug Court Grantee

Data Collection Survey on a semiannual

basis. The survey periods run January 1

through June 30 and July 1 through December 31. The surveys are due 60 days after

the end of the report period; that is, no later

than August 31 and February 28, respectively. These data will capture baseline information on both drug courts and defendants.

NOTE: This is no longer a requirement for

DCPO; however, the form is attached for

reference by jurisdictions interested in

using it as a starting point to identify data

elements.

Single Audit Report

Recipients who expend $300,000 or more

of Federal funds during their fiscal year are

required to submit an organizationwide

financial and compliance audit report. The

audit must be performed in accordance

with the U.S. General Accounting Office

Government Auditing Standards. The audit

report currently is due to the Federal Audit

Clearinghouse no later than 9 months after

the end of the recipient’s fiscal year.
Appendix 3

65
Supporting the Drug Court Process

66
Appendix 3

67
Supporting the Drug Court Process

68
Notes

69

1. Drug Courts Program Office, Defining

Drug Courts: The Key Components. (See

bibliography for full citations of most

reports listed in footnotes.)

2. Ibid., quoting directly from pp. 10, 11,

22, 24, 30, and 37.

3. Barry Mahoney, Drug Court Monitoring,

Evaluation, and Management Information

Systems, p. 12. This DCPO report documents the outcomes of focus group meetings on drug court MIS issues held in

March 1997 in New York, NY, and September 1997 in Washington, DC, which were

convened by The Justice Management

Institute in cooperation with DCPO.

4. A May 2001 report by the Office of Justice Programs’ Drug Court Clearinghouse

and Technical Assistance Project at The

American University, titled Background

Information on State Court Administrative

Office Activities in Support of Local Drug

Court Programs, noted that at least 10

States are developing State-level drug court

information systems and at least 5 States

are developing information systems for

local drug court programs.

5. For example, California’s Drug Court

Partnership Act of 1998 (CAL HEALTH &

SAFETY CODES § 11970) and the Comprehensive Drug Court Implementation Act 

of 1999 (CAL HEALTH & SAFETY CODES §§

11970.1–11970.4) require the State Judicial Council to develop an evaluation

design and provide the statutory authority

for a reporting requirement in furtherance

of the evaluation design. California’s much

publicized proposition 36, more properly

known as the Substance Abuse and Crime

Prevention Act of 2000, requires an annual

study “of the implementation process, a

review of lower incarceration costs, reductions in crime, reduced prison and jail construction, reduced welfare costs, the

adequacy of funds appropriated, and any

other impacts of issues the department can 

identify” (CAL HEALTH & SAFETY CODES §

11999.9). Funding is also provided for a

long-term study to evaluate the effectiveness and financial impact of drug courts

(CAL HEALTH & SAFETY CODES § 11999.10).

6. The report cited in supra note 4 reveals

that in 17 States, the OCA has oversight of

drug court evaluation activities, and in 7

States, the OCA has direct responsibility

for the conduct of drug court evaluations.

7. 42 U.S.C. § 290dd-2, and 42 C.F.R. pt. 2.

8. 42 U.S.C. § 290dd-2 applies to any drug

court that “holds itself out as providing,

and provides, alcohol or drug abuse diagnosis, treatment or referral for treatment.”

9. 42 C.F.R. § 2.31(a) specifies nine elements that must be included in a written
Supporting the Drug Court Process

70

consent (all of which are applicable to

criminal drug courts):

(1) The specific name or general designation of the program or person permitted to

make the disclosure.

(2) The name or title of the individual or

the name of the organization to which disclosure is to be made.

(3) The name of the patient.

(4) The purpose of the disclosure.

(5) How much and what kind of information is to be disclosed.

(6) The signature of the patient or, when

required for a patient who is a minor, the

signature of a person authorized to give

consent.

(7) The date on which the consent is signed.

(8) A statement that the consent is subject

to revocation at any time except to the

extent that the program or person who is

to make the disclosure has already acted in

reliance on it. (Note: This element should

not be included in consent forms in criminal drug courts, but it must be included in

juvenile and family drug court waivers. See

42 C.F.R. § 2.35.)

(9) The date, event, or condition upon

which the consent will expire if not

revoked. This date or condition must

ensure that the consent will last no longer

than reasonably necessary to serve the 

purpose for which it is given.

For more information on Federal consent

requirements, see Jeffrey Tauber et al.,

Federal Confidentiality Laws and How

They Affect Drug Court Practitioners, p. 9.

See also Rebecca Holland, Practical Guide

for Applying Federal Confidentiality Laws

to Drug Court Operations.

10. The consent form and qualified service

organization agreement are from DCPO’s

Fiscal Year 2002 Program Application Kit,

pp. 62–63. The sample intergovernmental

agreement and MOU are available through

the Office of Justice Programs’ Drug Court

Clearinghouse and Technical Assistance

Project at The American University Web

site at www.american.edu/spa/justice/

publications/intgov_agr_jun.htm and

www.american.edu/academic.depts/spa/

justice/publications/memo_under_jun.htm.

11. U.S. General Accounting Office, Drug

Courts: Overview of Growth, Characteristics, and Results.

12. The Justice Research Center developed

A Self-Evaluation Manual and Case Management System for Adult Drug Courts

under Grant No. SJI–98–N–128 from the

State Justice Institute. The manual accompanies a CD containing the Case Management System 2000 software, which is

available from the Justice Research Center,

591 Lighthouse Avenue, Suite 24, Pacific

Grove, CA 93950.

13. Felix Lopez, Confidentiality of Patient

Records for Alcohol and Other Drug 

Treatment.

14. 42 U.S.C. §§ 290dd-3, ee-3, and 42

C.F.R. pt. 2.

15. 42 C.F.R. §§ 2.52, 2.53.

16. See supra note 10.

17. Drug Courts Program Office, Fiscal

Year 2002 Program Application Kit, 

pp. 38–40.

18. Ibid., pp. 111–115.

19. For example, TCP/IP (Transmission

Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) communications protocols and browser user

interfaces.

20. Robert Gibson and Owen M. Greenspan,

Public Domain Drug Court Software: Functions and Utility.
Notes

71

21. See supra note 12.

22. Information from the FBI-administered

Interstate Identification Index is subject to

strict controls of access and secondary

dissemination—even between justice agencies. Each State has a designated official,

typically within the State police, known as

the National Crime Information Center

Control Terminal Officer, who should be

consulted on issues involving access and

dissemination of information from the

national system. Every State has an agency

that serves as a central repository for criminal records information and can assist in

resolving questions associated with access

and dissemination of information from the

State’s criminal records database. Both the

Interstate Identification Index and State

central repository are based on fingerprintbased arrest information. Some jurisdictions will choose to rely on a statewide

court-administered database. On the local

level, police and court records may be the

primary source of criminal information

about a program candidate or participant.

23. Page 107 of DCPO’s Fiscal Year 2002

Program Application Kit describes the

term “violent offender” as a person who

either (1) is charged with or convicted of

an offense, during the course of which

offense or conduct (A) the person carried,

possessed, or used a firearm or dangerous

weapon, (B) there occurred the death of, 

or serious bodily injury to, any person,

or (C) there occurred the use of force

against the person of another, without

regard to whether any of the circumstances

described in subparagraph (A), (B), or (C)

is an element of the offense or conduct of

which or for which the person is charged

or convicted; or (2) has one or more prior

convictions of a felony crime of violence

involving the use or attempted use of force

against a person with the intent to cause

death or serious bodily harm.

24. Ibid., p. 109.

25. James A. Inciardi, Screening and

Assessment for Alcohol and Other Drug

Abuse Among Adults in the Criminal Justice System, p. 19.

26. Ibid., p. 18.

27. For a more complete discussion of

the assessment process and the various

techniques and instruments that may be

employed, see Roger H. Peters and Elizabeth Peyton, Guideline for Drug Courts

on Screening and Assessment, and the

following reports published by the Center

for Substance Abuse Treatment: James A.

Inciardi, Screening and Assessment for

Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Among

Adults in the Criminal Justice System, and

Ken C. Winters and Jonathan M. Zenilman,

Simple Screening Instruments for Outreach for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse

and Infectious Diseases.

28. For a detailed discussion of the relationship between psychiatric disorders and

alcohol and other drug use problems, see

Richard K. Reis, Assessment and Treatment of Patients with Coexisting Mental

Illness and Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse.

29. See supra note 25.

30. Ibid.

31. Staffings are drug court team meetings

at which individual participant progress is

reviewed and possible sanctions, incentives, and rewards are discussed.

32. Drug Courts Program Office, Fiscal

Year 2002 Program Application Kit, p. 38.

33. See appendix 2 for additional information on application requirements relating

to evaluation.

34. Drug Courts Program Office, Fiscal

Year 2002 Program Application Kit, p. 111.
Bibliography

73

Published Materials

Steven Belenko. “Research on Drug Courts:

A Critical Review.” National Drug Court

Institute Review, Volume I, Issue I. Alexandria, VA: National Drug Court Institute,

Summer 1998.

Steven Belenko. Research on Drug Courts:

A Critical Review, 2001 Update. New York,

NY: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, June

2001.

Drug Courts Program Office, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

Defining Drug Courts: The Key Components. Prepared in collaboration with the

National Association of Drug Court Professionals, Drug Court Standards Committee.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, January 1997.

Drug Courts Program Office, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

Fiscal Year 2002 Program Application Kit.

SL 000495. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. (Note: Grant solicitations

and application kits are available each fiscal

year at the DCPO Web site at www.ojp.

usdoj.gov/dcpo/applicationkits.htm.)

Robert Gibson and Owen M. Greenspan.

Public Domain Drug Court Software:

Functions and Utility. Sacramento, CA:

SEARCH, The National Consortium for

Justice Information and Statistics, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,

Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts

Program Office, 2002.

Rebecca Holland. Practical Guide for

Applying Federal Confidentiality Laws to

Drug Court Operations. NCJ 176977.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Drug

Courts Program Office, June 1999.

James A. Inciardi, Consensus Panel Chair.

Screening and Assessment for Alcohol

and Other Drug Abuse Among Adults in

the Criminal Justice System. Treatment

Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series, #7.

DHHS Pub. No. (SMA) 94B2076. Rockville,

MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services, Center for Substance Abuse

Treatment, 1994.

Susan M. Jennen. Privacy and Public

Access to Electronic Court Information: A

Guide to Policy Decisions for State Courts.

Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State

Courts, 1995.

Robert A. Kirchner, Ph.D. A Realistic

Approach to Drug Court Evaluation. Presentation given at the National Association

of Drug Court Professionals’ Fifth Annual

Training Conference, June 3–5, 1999, in
Supporting the Drug Court Process

74

Miami, FL. Dr. Kirchner is Senior Advisor

for Evaluation, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice.

Felix Lopez. Confidentiality of Patient

Records for Alcohol and Other Drug

Treatment. Technical Assistance Publication Series, #13. DHHS Pub. No. (SMA)

95–3018. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department

of Health and Human Services, Center for

Substance Abuse Treatment, 1994.

Barry Mahoney. Drug Court Monitoring,

Evaluation, and Management Information

Systems. Prepared by The Justice Management Institute. Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice, Office of Justice

Programs, Drug Courts Program Office,

May 1998.

National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

1999 Annual Report on Drug Use Among

Adult and Juvenile Arrestees. A report of

the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program. NCJ 181426. Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice, June 2000.

Roger H. Peters. Evaluating Drug Court

Programs: An Overview of Issues and

Alternative Strategies. Washington DC:

The American University, School of Public

Affairs, Justice Programs Office, March

1996.

Roger H. Peters and Elizabeth Peyton.

Guideline for Drug Courts on Screening

and Assessment. Prepared for the Justice

Programs Office, School of Public Affairs,

The American University, in association

with the Drug Courts Program Office,

Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice, May 1998.

Richard K. Reis, Consensus Panel Chair.

Assessment and Treatment of Patients

with Coexisting Mental Illness and Alcohol

and Other Drug Abuse. TIP Series, #9.

DHHS Pub. No. (SMA) 95–3061. Rockville,

MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services, Center for Substance Abuse

Treatment, 1994.

John Roman, Jennifer Woodard, Adele Harrell, and Stacia Riggs. A Methodology for

Measuring Costs and Benefits of CourtBased Drug Intervention Programs Using

Findings from Experimental and QuasiExperimental Evaluations. Washington,

DC: The Urban Institute, December 1998.

Kevin M. Sherin and Barry Mahoney, Consensus Panel Cochairs. Treatment Drug

Courts: Integrating Substance Abuse

Treatment with Legal Case Processing.

TIP Series, #23. DHHS Pub. No. (SMA) 

96–3113. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department

of Health and Human Services, Center for

Substance Abuse Treatment, 1996.

Jeffrey Tauber, Susan Weinstein, and David

Taube. Federal Confidentiality Laws and

How They Affect Drug Court Practitioners.

Alexandria, VA: National Drug Court Institute, April 1999.

U.S. General Accounting Office. Drug

Courts: Overview of Growth, Characteristics, and Results. GAO/GGD–07–106. 

Washington, DC: U.S. General Accounting

Office, July 1997.

Gerald L. Vigdal. Planning for Alcohol and

Other Drug Abuse Treatment for Adults in

the Criminal Justice System. TIP Series,

#17. DHHS Pub. No. (SMA) 95–3039.

Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health

and Human Services, Center for Substance

Abuse Treatment, 1995.

Ken C. Winters and Jonathan M. Zenilman,

Consensus Panel Cochairs. Simple Screening Instruments for Outreach for Alcohol

and Other Drug Abuse and Infectious

Diseases. TIP Series, #11. DHHS Pub. No.

(SMA) 95–3058. Rockville, MD: U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services,
Bibliography

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Center for Substance Abuse Treatment,

1994.

Unpublished Materials

Brooklyn (NY) Treatment Court. “Treatment and Supervision Structure” (revised

January 5, 1998).

Buffalo (NY) Drug Treatment Court. “Policy

and Procedures Manual” (draft, 1998).

Buffalo (NY) Drug Treatment Court.

“Process Evaluation” (interim report, 

February 1999).

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Juvenile Drug Court. “Program Description.”

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Affairs, The American University. “Guideline for Compiling Information Relevant to

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Standards & Practices” (version 4.1, February 17, 1998).

Jan Roehl and Kristin Guertin. “A SelfEvaluation Manual and Case Management

System for Adult Drug Courts.” Justice

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San Bernardino County (CA) Drug Court.

“Participant Handbook” (revised November

4, 1997).

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Court. “Program Data Sheet.”

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Electronic and Online Sources

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Court Data Management Information 

System–99.”

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Treatment Court System.” 1999.

www.drugcourttech.org.

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Clearinghouse and Technical Assistance

Project at the Justice Programs Office,

School of Public Affairs, The American

University. “Parish of Rapides, State of

Louisiana, Intergovernmental Agreement”

and “Memorandum of UnderstandingNinth Judicial District Court Drug Court

Division: Parish of Rapides, Louisiana.”

www.american.edu/spa/justice/publications.

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Trafficking Area: Treatment Automated

Referral System (TARS) and Judicial

Access Management System (JAMS).”

www.drugcourttech.org.
Bureau of Justice Assistance

Information

For more indepth information about BJA, its programs, and its funding opportunities, requesters can call

the BJA Clearinghouse. The BJA Clearinghouse, a component of the National Criminal Justice Reference

Service (NCJRS), shares BJA program information with state and local agencies and community groups

across the country. Information specialists are available to provide reference and referral services, publication

distribution, participation and support for conferences, and other networking and outreach activities. The

clearinghouse can be reached by:

❒ Mail

P.O. Box 6000

Rockville, MD 20849–6000

❒ Visit

2277 Research Boulevard

Rockville, MD 20850

❒ Telephone

1–800–688–4252

Monday through Friday

8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

eastern time

❒ Fax

301–519–5212

❒ BJA Home Page

www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

❒ NCJRS Home Page

www.ncjrs.org

❒ E-mail

askncjrs@ncjrs.org

❒ JUSTINFO Newsletter

E-mail to listproc@ncjrs.org

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