Measuring Drug Court Adherence to the What Works Literature

Blair, Leon Borden; Sullivan, Carrie; Lux, Jennifer L.; Thielo, Angela J.; Gormsen, Lia

doi:10.1177/0306624x14549950

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Thus, as progressive policymakers adopt a liberal version of "punishment works," a key group who may have otherwise been sympathetic to embracing a treatment philosophy might now be harder to convince that it has merit. Even so, the data are pretty clear on this one-that specialty courts do much better when they explicitly adopt a treatment philosophy (Blair, Sullivan, Lux, Thielo, & Gormsen, 2016;Shaffer, 2011). So to the extent that policymakers still favor evidence-based approaches to corrections-and we have good reason to believe that they do-this is the evidence that should guide specialty courts in the future.…”

Section: Embrace a Treatment Philosophymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Criminological Fly in the Ointment: Specialty Courts and the Generality of Deviance

Pratt

Turanovic

2019

Victims & Offenders

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Specialty courts-such as drug courts, mental health courts, or domestic violence courts-tend to assume, either implicitly or explicitly, that particular groups of offenders have unique problems that can be best met with specialized case processing. Put simply, specialty courts assume that offenders themselves are specialists when it comes to offending. There is, however, a criminological fly in the ointment. The problem is that criminological theory and research have long demonstrated that offenders tend to be generalists and that they rarely specialize in any given form of misbehavior. Accordingly, the authors argue here that the notion of the "generality of deviance" presents a problem for the potential effectiveness of specialty courts because they are likely operating on a faulty set of ideas about offending behavior. The authors offer strategies for moving forward to better integrate the notion of the generality of deviance into specialty courts: in particular, embracing a rehabilitative philosophy and adopting well-documented correctional treatment approaches such as cognitive-behavioral interventions and the risk-need-responsivity model. They conclude by highlighting the risks associated with granting system efficiency a position of privilege among the multiple goals of corrections. KEYWORDS generality of deviance; versatility of offending; specialty courts There are currently a lot of specialty courts in the United States. All of it really started with drug courts in the late 1980s, where the first one was established in Miami, Florida, in 1989, which quickly proliferated to over 800 drug courts by the year 2000, and currently there are over 3,000 nationwide (National Institute of Justice, 2018). The development of other kinds of specialty courts-also referred to as "problem-solving courts" (Portillo, Rudes, & Taxman, 2016)-soon followed, including those that deal specifically with criminally involved persons with mental health problems (

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Section: Embrace a Treatment Philosophymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Criminological Fly in the Ointment: Specialty Courts and the Generality of Deviance

Pratt

Turanovic

2019

Victims & Offenders

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“…Given the lack of uniformity in drug court implementation, there is a need to establish a create measurement tools to evaluate adherence to standards. Recently the developers of the Correctional Program Assessment Inventory (CPAI) piloted a quality measure for juvenile drug courts (Blair, Sullivan, Lux, Thielo, & Gormsen, 2016). However, there is no similar comprehensive measure for adult drug courts.…”

Section: Measures Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the quality of drug court clinical screening: a call for performance measurement policy reform

Henry

2018

Criminal Justice Studies

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Despite the widespread use of the drug court model, standardized performance measures for drug courts are not uniformly utilized, and rarely include process measures. To ensure that drug courts are being implemented in the most effective manner, the use of performance measurement tools should be considered for wide scale adoption. Drug court effectiveness is moderated by participant characteristics, and is most effective for individuals with the highest substance use needs. Therefore, having quality clinical screening processes is crucial to ensuring that drug courts are serving the population for which they are effective. This paper examines clinical screening in drug courts, to answer the following 1) what is the current state of screening, 2) what works, and 3) why measurement matters. It also proposes a clinical screening performance measure to improve fidelity and ensure appropriate participant enrollment. The creation of a performance measure would create opportunities to improve drug court outcomes, and leverage pay-for-performance models.

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“…These principles have been operationalized into measures of program integrity such as the Correctional Program Assessment Inventory (CPAI) (Gendreau & Andrews, 1996) and the Correctional Program Checklist (CPC) (Latessa, 2005(Latessa, , 2012. Importantly, both of these measures have been validated against the outcome of recidivism; programs that demonstrate high program integrity, as measured by either the CPAI or CPC, also demonstrate lowered recidivism rates as compared to programs demonstrating low program integrity which have been shown to increase recidivism (Blair et al, 2014;Lowenkamp, 2003;Nesovic, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Case planning and recidivism of high risk and violent adult probationers

Gossner¹,

Simon²,

Rector³

et al. 2016

jcswb

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This research examined the relationship between case planning indicators and recidivism for a sample of medium and high risk Canadian probationers sampled from two separate probation offices operating under the same policies and standards. A scale that measured completeness of case planning based on an evidence-based, outcome-focused case planning model called Community Safety Planning, revealed significant differences in case planning completeness between the samples with the probation office reporting higher levels of completeness demonstrating significantly lower levels of recidivism. This effect was also observed when investigating the entire sample; high-risk probationers with more complete case plans had 52 per cent less recidivism than high-risk probationers with less complete case plans. The nature of communication between probation and police services on an individual case basis was also examined in an effort to better understand how these partnerships are currently functioning, and whether there is opportunity to improve the strategic nature of the communication to achieve the common goal of community safety. Implications for best practices in case management with offender populations are offered.

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Measuring Drug Court Adherence to the What Works Literature

Cited by 14 publications

References 55 publications

A Criminological Fly in the Ointment: Specialty Courts and the Generality of Deviance

A Criminological Fly in the Ointment: Specialty Courts and the Generality of Deviance

Improving the quality of drug court clinical screening: a call for performance measurement policy reform

Case planning and recidivism of high risk and violent adult probationers

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