Expedited Drug Case Management.


Series: BJA
Published: July 1994
15 pages
30,958 bytes

EXPEDITED DRUG CASE MANAGEMENT
Caroline S. Cooper, The American University

The influx of drug cases during the past decade has
forced many judicial systems to reexamine existing
methods for managing the criminal docket and to
consider special strategies for handling drug
cases. Central to this examination has been the
recognition that effective management of the drug
caseload and supervision of drug-involved offenders
require early judicial intervention and flexible
case management approaches. Such approaches permit
judges to tailor applicable sanctions and treatment
intervention strategies to individual offenders.

Several judicial strategies to deal with the drug
caseload and the drug-involved offender have been
developed based on this recognition. These
strategies have included special drug court
divisions within trial courts, expedited case
processing procedures, deferred proseecution
programs requiring court-supervised treatment and
counseling, increased coordination of the treatment
and supervision functions within the adjudication 
process, and various combinations of these
approaches. All of these strategies are based on
early case screening to determine the degree of
judicial supervision required for disposition and
early treatment intervention, where feasible, to
promote the rehabilitation of offenders and lessen
the likelihood of continued drug usage and criminal
activity. 

Although these strategies vary among jurisdictions,
their underlying premise is that drug cases present
special case management and treatment intervention
issues that courts must address. The most
significant of these issues include:

o The need to manage a large number of cases that
vary considerably in the severity of potential
applicable sanctions, which generally predict the
level of management simplicity--or complexity--of
the case disposition process.

o Thhe large number of drug cases that involve
possession of relatively small amounts of illicit
substances.

o The frequency of pretrial motions to challenge
initial stops or suppress seized evidence, the
outcome of which often determines the outcome of
the case.

o The universal need for laboratory analyses for
prosecution purposes.

o The importance of the court's immediate
intervention for both treatment and sanctioning
purposes.

o An increasing recognition that drug use is an
illness that requires treatment as well as
sanctions.

These special characteristics have made it
essential that the adjudication and disposition
components of the judicial process be closely
linked and that dispositional alternatives,
including early assessment of defendants' treatment
needs, be identified as soon as possible after the
adjudication process begins.

Effective management and disposition of the drug
caseload has, therefore, required courts to conduct
early screening of each case se to  differentiate
between:

o Defendants eligible for and amenable to treatment
and rehabilitation and those who are not.

o Cases that can be processed fairly quickly and
those that require more extensive court
supervision.

In performing these functions, many courts have
assumed the role of treatment facilitators in
addition to their traditional adjudication roles.
They have also coordinated services among a number
of agency personnel who are involved at various
stages of the adjudication and disposition process.
These personnel have included police officers,
prosecutors, laboratory analysts, defense counsel,
pretrial and postadjudication supervision
authorities, and treatment providers. Developing
mechanisms to coordinate services among agencies
that have traditionally been independent, and in
some instances adversarial, has presented a major
challenge to most judicial systems. The Bureau of
Justice Assistance (BJA) has attempted to address
these issues through  its Expedited Drug Case
Management (EDCM) Demonstration Program.

Expedited Drug Case Management Demonstration
Program

In 1989 BJA launched the Expedited Drug Case
Management Demonstration Program to help State
courts of general jurisdiction address the 
special management and treatment intervention
issues presented by the drug caseload and the drug-
involved offender. The goal of the EDCM
demonstration program was to develop, pilot test,
and refine Differentiated Case Management (DCM)
techniques for processing drug cases and, in
addition, to incorporate a variety of treatment and
rehabilitation services in the case disposition
process, both pretrial and postadjudication. Three 
jurisdictions, each with a different approach for
managing the drug caseload, were selected by BJA to
develop EDCM programs that could be adapted by
other jurisdictions. These jurisdictions were
Middlesex County (New Brunswick), New Jersey;
Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon; and
Philadelphphia, Pennsylvania.1

Benefits That Can Be Achieved Through an Expedited
Drug Case Management Program

The three EDCM demonstration projects confirmed the
benefits of applying DCM techniques to the drug
caseload as well as the importance of developing
management systems to promote early screening and
treatment intervention for all drug-involved
defendants as soon as possible after arrest. Courts
using EDCM strategies have been able to improve
their capacity to control the caseload shortly
after filing, to develop individualized treatment
intervention and sanctioning strategies, and to
ensure that the court's intervention proceeded in a
timely and effective manner. Some of the other
benefits reported by jurisdictions adopting EDCM
strategies include:

o Increased court efficiency.

o Increased productivity of judges, prosecutors,
indigent defense counsel, and their staffs.

o Reduction in the number of defendants who fail to
appear and in the number of bench warrants ts that
must be issued.

o Reduction in pretrial jail days used for detained
defendants.

o Reduction in costs for pretrial detention.

o More effective treatment services for offenders.
In addition, the communication mechanisms and
coordination of services forged among agencies
implementing EDCM programs have contributed to a
more collegial approach to the management of drug
cases and to a greater awareness among the various
agencies of the interdependency of their functions.

Key Components of the Program

The three EDCM demonstration programs used a range
of case management and treatment intervention
strategies that promoted early and continuous court
supervision. Although the operational
characteristics of these strategies varied among
jurisdictions, the programs built upon nine key
components, which are described below.

Case differentiation criteria. The EDCM programs
established the factors to be used to determine
case processing priority as well as the level off
preparation and amount of court intervention 
required to achieve a timely and just resolution of
each case. The case differentiation criteria used 
in EDCM programs related to case characteristics,
defendants' backgrounds, potential severity of
sentencing, and public policy priorities.2 EDCM
program criteria commonly distinguished among
cases involving:

o Possession of small amounts of controlled
substances versus more serious drug offenses such
as conspiracy, delivery, and trafficking.

o Single defendants versus multiple defendants.

o Severity of the potential sentence, including
distinctions between defendants eligible for
deferred prosecution, if that option was available,
and defendants subject to mandatory incarceration.

o Violent versus nonviolent offenses.

Case-processing tracks and procedures. The EDCM
programs created a sufficient number of case
processing tracks (generally between three and
five) to accommodate the disposition requirements
of the casseload. In addition, events and time
intervals were identified for each track to promote
fair and efficient case disposition and meaningful
supervision of defendants. The case processing
procedures for each track allowed the court to
intervene soon after arrest to ensure that each
case was managed expeditiously and that the arrest
resulted in an immediate sanction and/or treatment
for each eligible defendant in a rehabilitation
program. The track procedures supported the court's
responsibility for monitoring defendants'
compliance with conditions of pretrial release and
provided for immediate court intervention when
violations occurred.

Early defendant screening for substance abuse
dependency. The EDCM programs evaluated each
defendant charged with a drug-related offense as
soon as possible after arrest to identify the
extent of drug dependency, amenability to
treatment, and support services needed to promote
rehabilitation and minimize the likelihood of
recidivism.  This comprehensive assessment provided
the framework for determining the treatment and
other community resources needed to support
rehabilitation. Ideally the assessment was
completed before the defendant's first appearance
in court so that the results could be incorporated
into the conditions of release.

Pretrial release and alternative sanctioning. From
a judicial perspective, the EDCM program involved
substantially more court-supervised treatment and
support services than other criminal case
processing programs. Judges tailored the conditions
of pretrial and probationary release for each
defendant and then monitored performance after
those conditions were imposed. In addition,
services had to be carefully monitored to be sure
that the changing needs of each defendant were met.
Judges frequently conducted routine status
conferences face to face with defendants to discuss
overall progress as well as specific problems that
warranted additional court services.

Coorddination between the court and treatment
providers. Developing a cooperative relationship
between the court and treatment providers was one
of the most important aspects of the EDCM program.
Critical to this relationship was the development
of common goals and objectives that ensured that
the court and treatment  providers were not
adversaries, using different criteria to judge the
success or failure of defendants. Also critical
were communication mechanisms that were established
for treatment providers to report regularly on each
defendant's progress to the court.

Through these communication mechanisms the court
set down the conditions for a defendant's
performance, such as urine tests, participation in
treatment and counseling programs, and
employment.3 The court also measured performance
against the objective information reported by the
treatment provider and determined how violations
were to be treated. The court and treatment
providers talked with one another reegularly about
the operation of the EDCM program and the methods
by which each could reinforce the work of the
other.

Mobilization of community resources. The EDCM
programs depended on a broad network of treatment
and community resources such as religious
organizations, educational institutions, treatment
providers, business and industrial representatives,
and individual volunteers. Services provided
included education, treatment, employment, 
community restitution, and individual and family
mentoring. Judicial officials mobilized resources
in the community to support their treatment
intervention strategies for drug-dependent
defendants and promoted regular communication 
between the judicial system and community
representatives.

To help citizens understand the efforts the court
was making to combat drug abuse, some judicial
officials attempted to educate community groups
about the relationship between the court and the
community in combating substance abuse. This ddialog
also helped the court understand community concerns
and priorities.

Mechanisms for interagency coordination. The EDCM
programs coordinated the functions of the agencies
involved in the case disposition and defendant
rehabilitation process and established mechanisms
for communication. Frequent consultation between
the court and the service agencies occurred from
the time EDCM program planning began. Relevant
information was shared, interdependent roles were
established, and a commonality of purpose was
developed. Some jurisdictions established special
coordinating groups that met periodically to
address these issues.

Program management and monitoring. Judicial
officials ensured that cases proceeded to
disposition according to applicable procedures and
timeframes by seeing that resources for the
adjudication, rehabilitation, and supervision of
drug-involved offenders were available when needed
and that the court intervened promptly when
violations of conditionss of pretrial and
probationary release occurred. Information on the
status of each drug case and each defendant was
readily available to the court. This information
was compiled from criminal records, treatment
provider files, social  service histories, and case
processing records. Staff were given responsibility
for coordinating the delivery of adjudication
services, monitoring case progress, and ensuring 
that treatment and other rehabilitation services
were provided  when needed. Most jurisdictions
developed specially designed management information
systems to  accomplish these tasks.

Constant monitoring of the EDCM programs permitted
judicial officials to assess the degree to which 
program goals were achieved, to address operational
problems as they occurred, to resolve policy issues
as they arose, and to fine-tune program procedures
as needed.

Judicial system leadership. Judicial leadership in
designing and overseeing the EDCM programs was
essential in all thrree demonstration jurisdictions.
With their multiple case-processing tracks,
expedited procedures for intervention and
supervision, and coordination among judicial and
treatment agencies, EDCM programs required local
justice and treatment agencies to change their
operations significantly. For example, courts had
to alter their case-assignment practices,
laboratories had to devise new procedures for
prioritizing analyses, and treatment providers had
to modify their protocols to accommodate court
reporting requirements.

By designating one judge to oversee the program and
working with the justice system and other agencies
to implement it,jurisdictions increased the
likelihood that program procedures would be applied
consistently. Some courts began their drug case
management and intervention programs by having one
judge, with specially assigned prosecutors and
indigent defense counsel, to handle all EDCM cases.
After an initial test period, some jurisdictions
rotated ressponsibility for overseeing the EDCM
program to other interested judges.

Implementation Agenda

Implementation of an EDCM program can help
jurisdictions to manage their caseloads and
initiate immediate treatment and other
rehabilitative measures for defendants released
during the pretrial period, thereby maximizing the
likelihood of rehabilitation. Following is a
description of the primary tasks involved in
implementing an EDCM program.

Determine who should be involved in planning the
program. Once a court has made a commitment to
adopt the EDCM process, the agencies and
individuals integral to adjudication and treatment
referral need to be identified and involved in
program planning. At a minimum, these include the
chief judge, the presiding criminal judge, the
court administrator, the prosecutor, the indigent
defense service provider, the sheriff, pretrial and
probation agencies, county health department
officials, and treatment program representatives.
Jurisdictiions with TASC (Treatment Alternatives to
Street Crime) programs should contact them in
defining overall program needs.

Develop a Differentiated Case Management program
for case processing purposes. Those individuals who
are involved in the adjudication aspect of drug
cases should develop a Differentiated Case
Management system to create an adequate range of
case processing tracks, with applicable procedures
and timeframes, to address the range of disposition
procedures for the drug cases filed.

Identify treatment and other community resources
needed to implement the court's treatment
intervention strategies. Simultaneously with the
development of a DCM program for case processing
purposes, a list should be compiled of the
principal treatment providers and others in the
community who can provide supervision, counseling,
vocational training, education, job placement, and
other services to drug-dependent defendants and
their families. In addition, other community grouups
that can supplement and/or coordinate these
services need to be involved in the program design
and operation. These may include religious groups,
local educational institutions, and business
organizations that can provide a network of
community volunteer resources to support the
court's supervision, referral, and monitoring
needs.

Develop a mechanism to coordinate and expand
community resources that can be enlisted to support
the court's program goals. The court should develop
a mechanism for identifying and coordinating the
community resources needed to support the program.
To perform this function, a member of the court
staff or a staff person of a participating agency
might be designated to develop educational
materials describing the court's EDCM program,
coordinate community resource needs with existing
program capabilities, and prepare a catalog of
available resources.

Develop a management information system to manage
and monitor the program. Information ffrom a variety
of justice agencies and other sources will be
needed for defendant screening, case tracking,
monitoring, treatment referral, and overall program
evaluation to ensure that program goals and
objectives are being achieved. In some
jurisdictions, initial information system 
development proceeded through use of personal
computers.

Ensure adequate interagency coordination,
management, and program support. The court should
take the lead in ensuring that adequate mechanisms
are developed to promote ongoing coordination among
all agencies involved and resolve coordination
problems as they arise. The court will also need to
ensure that community involvement is focused on
areas that pose no legal or other liability to
participants and that defendants who require the
help of trained professionals receive those
services.

Provide orientation sessions and ongoing training
for agency staff, volunteers, and community groups.
A variety of orientation programs and ongoiing
training workshops, geared to the range of
individuals involved with the EDCM program, are
essential to ensure that everyone understands the
goals, policies, and procedures of the EDCM program
and the relationship of its specific role to
achieve the program vision. Topics to be covered
include specific policies and procedures required
for program operation, evaluation measures, and
issues relating to interagency coordination.

Conduct ongoing program assessment and fine tuning,
as needed. Any program that seeks to expedite the
court's management of drug cases and treatment
intervention for drug-involved offenders needs to
be dynamic and flexible, responding to changes in
caseload and defendant characteristics, public
policy, and treatment and sanctioning requirements.
Program operations and defendant treatment needs
and sanctions imposed should be monitored
continuously to identify problems in program
policies procedures, or resources as they arise;
recommend requuired changes; and provide periodic
reports on the efficacy of the program to all
agencies involved.

Conclusion

The range of case differentiation and treatment
intervention programs that courts have been
designing demonstrates that, despite the increase
in volume, courts can individualize case
disposition and the sanctions imposed upon
defendants. The variety of case management and
treatment intervention strategies underway
represents a unique period of experimentation and
innovation in the case management process and in
the relationships among justice system, treatment,
and community service agencies. Despite their
differences, all of these strategies build upon the
collaboration--not simply cooperation--of local
criminal justice system officials and,  frequently,
many other local public and private agencies. This
collaboration, together with the innovative
procedures and programs developed, reflects a
fundamental rethinking of the judicial function and
the role thhat the court and the judiciary can play
in the war on drugs.

Sources for Further Information

Publications on DCM and other crime and drug
prevention efforts are available from:

BJA Clearinghouse
Box 6000
Rockville, MD 20850
Telephone: 800-688-4252
Fax: 301-251-5212

Additional information on Expedited Drug Case
Management Programs can be obtained from:

Charles Hollis, Chief
Courts and Prosecution Branch
Bureau of Justice Assistance
633 Indiana Avenue NW.
Washington, DC 20531
Telephone: 202-514-5943

Caroline S. Cooper
Deputy Director
School of Public Affairs
Justice Programs Office
The American University
4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW.
Washington, DC 20016-8159

1. Although BJA's EDCM Demonstration Program
focused initially upon these three sites, its
principles were quickly adapted by a number of
other jurisdictions that received limited technical
assistance from BJA.

2. These criteria were modified to comply with
local drug statutes and prosecutorial prioritieses.

3. Urine test results, sufficiently frequent to
provide a continuing profile of defendant
performance, were considered the most important
information for the court in its monitoring
function, supplemented with other objective data
available to measure defendant compliance with the
requirements of his or her rehabilitation program.

This document was prepared by The American
University, supported by grant number 89-DD-CX-
K023, awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance,
U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings,
or recommendations expressed in this document are
those of the author and do not necessarily reflect
the official position or policies of the U.S.
Department of Justice or The American University.
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 Vi Victims of Crime.


DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN EDCM AND DCM

EDCM, or Expedited Drug Case Management, builds
upon DCM, or Differentiated Case Management.*
Underlying both is a recognition that many cases
can--and should--proceed through the court system
at a faster pace than others if appropriate
pathways are provided. Therefore, in both systems
cases do not wait for disposition simply on the
basis of the chronological order of their filing.
Both EDCM and DCM use similar case management
procedures. However, whereas DCM can be used to
manage all types of criminal cases, EDCM is
designed specifically for drug cases, and therefore
its emphasis--in addition to management--is on drug
treatment, counseling, and rehabilitation. The
three EDCM demonstration programs described here
applied these common practices:

o Early screening of each drug or drug-related case
and classification according to the complexity and
priority of case processing.

o Simultaneous early screening of  each defendant to
determine the extent of drug dependency, the need
for educational and vocational training and other
rehabilitation services, and eligibility for and
amenability to treatment and other community-based
supervision programs.

o Assignment of cases to appropriate case
processing tracks, each of which had special
provisions for court events and treatment
intervention strategies as well as timeframes for
their occurrence.

o Continuous monitoring of the case disposition
process, with track reassignment if necessary.

o Continuous monitoring of each defendant's
compliance with pretrial and postadjudication
conditions of release, with the court's response to
violations designed to reinforce defendants who
were making an effort to become rehabilitated and
sanction those who were not.

o Coordination of existing treatment, vocational,
educational, and other community resources for drug
case supervision, both pretrial and
postadjudication, and development of af additional
resources, as needed.

* For a detailed description of BJA's DCM
Demonstration Program, see the BJA Program Brief
Differentiated Case Management.

MIDDLESEX COUNTY: TRACKING DRUG CASES THROUGH EDCM

Within 5 days of an arrest, the Middlesex County
EDCM program assigned drug cases to one of two
tracks: track A for cases subject to mandatory
incarceration penalties, and track B for other drug
cases. Track A cases that were not disposed of by
plea within the first 2 weeks after filing were
referred to the grand jury for indictment within 21
days and then scheduled for trial 45 days later.
Track B cases that were not disposed of within the
first 2 weeks following arrest were assigned to a
third track, track C, for trial on an information
(that is, an accusation sworn by the prosecutor)
within 30 to 45 days.

Regardless of track assignment, all defendants
eligible for pretrial release appeared within 1
week of arrest before the EDCM judge, who imposed
conditions of release tailored to the treatment and
rehabilitation needs of each defendant. These
release conditions included regular urinalysis,
drug counseling, obtaining or retaining employment,
and perhaps family counseling and educational or
vocational training.

The pretrial release conditions were closely
monitored by probation department staff, who were
helped by a cadre of volunteers who performed daily
telephone verification with employers and
counselors. Defendants who violated any of these 
conditions were immediately apprehended and brought
before the EDCM judge for a prerevocation  hearing.
The EDCM judge reviewed defendants' performance,
modified the conditions of release as necessary to
promote rehabilitation (such as increasing the
frequency of urinalysis or making referrals to
enhanced treatment programs), and attempted to
motivate defendants to become drug free.

One unique feature of the Middlesex County EDCM
program was the network of community resources  the
EDCM judge developed to assist the court in
monitoring the conditions of release. During the
pretrial and postadjudication periods, the EDCM
judge had access to a job bank to which released
defendants could be referred, a network of mentors
for defendants and their families, and tutoring
assistance for defendants. A community restitution
program was also established through which
convicted criminals could be required to perform
work for community agencies that were immunized,
through special legislation, from civil liability
arising from their participation in the restitution
program.

MULTNOMAH COUNTY: INTEGRATING CASE PROCESSING AND
TREATMENT SERVICES

The Multnomah County EDCM program established three
case processing tracks:

o A deferred prosecution track (called the STOP
program), to which eligible defendants were
assigned within 3 days of arrest for a period of 1
year. Managed by a specially assigned judge, this
track allowed defendants to complete a treattment
program that included drug education, counseling,
and other community support services.*

o A track for defendants who were charged with drug
offenses but were not eligible for deferred
prosecution, either because they were terminated
from the STOP program for noncompliance or because
they faced other pending charges.

o A track for defendants, most of them drug
dependent, who were charged with drug-related
offenses (primarily property).

Different court events and timeframes applied to
each track, with referral to a variety of pretrial
and probation treatment, counseling, and other
community-based assistance programs incorporated
into all of them, and playing a central role for
the STOP program cases.

One unique feature of the Multnomah County program
has been the integration of the deferred
prosecution track with the other case processing
tracks. If a defendant is terminated from the
deferred prosecution program for noncompliance,
that person's case is referrred to the applicable
case processing track for immediate disposition.

* Special case processing tracks for cases eligible
for deferred prosecution such as those implemented
in Multnomah County are frequently called drug
courts and are being used in a number of
jurisdictions.


PHILADELPHIA; EXPANDING TO THE CRIMINCAL DOCKET

The Philadelphia EDCM program targeted felony cases
assigned to the Waiver Division of the Court of
Common Pleas, which handled  approximately 70
percent of the court's criminal caseload. In
general, cases assigned to the Waiver Division were
the less serious felony cases--almost all of which
involved drug offenses and drug-involved
offenders--and were tried before the bench rather
than a jury.

Initially, four case processing tracks were
established. Tracks A and B targeted incarcerated
and nonincarcerated defendants, respectively, whose
cases were deemed amenable to disposition at
arraignment or shortly thereafter or who were
eligible for diveersion or immediate treatment
referral. Track C was for defendants with multiple
cases pending who were offered an opportunity to
dispose of all of their pending cases in a
consolidated plea agreement. All other cases were
assigned to Track D.

After the first year, the EDCM program was expanded
to the rest of the criminal docket by creating
three additional tracks. Regardless of track
assignment, each defendant was screened shortly
after arrest to determine the extent of drug usage,
to assess the amenability to treatment and
rehabilitation services, and to identify potential
treatment and other referral programs that could be
brought to the attention of the EDCM judge as soon
as the defendant  appeared in the Court of Common Pleas.