Do Drug Courts Work? Getting inside the Drug Court Black Box

Journal of Drug Issues - Tập 31 Số 1 - Trang 27-72 - 2001
John S. Goldkamp1, Michael D. White2, Jennifer B. Robinson3
1Criminal Justice at Temple University and heads the Crime and Justice Research Institute, a non-profit policy research center, in Philadelphia
2Crime and Justice Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
3Temple University and a Research Assistant at the Crime and Justice Research Institute

Tóm tắt

This article argues that evaluation of drug courts will benefit not only from an organizing typology (Goldkamp, 1999a, 2000) that focuses research on the critical structural elements of the drug court model but also from an understanding of how drug courts are thought to deliver their impact. In developing a causal model of drug court impact, the analysis separates assessment of impact into two investigations: whether drug courts “work” and how they work. Data from the ongoing NIJ-supported evaluation of the Portland and Las Vegas drug courts are analyzed to answer the comparative question of whether there is an impact (and of what sort) and then to move consideration of the internal elements of the drug court (the black box of drug court treatment) through the development of successive theoretical models. The illustrative analyses guided by these models consider the relative contributions of instrumental drug court treatment functions and defendant risk attributes, which contribute importantly to drug court outcomes. The exploratory findings differ by site, but show some support for the importance of treatment, sanctions and appearances before the drug court judge—and their interaction—in lowering the prospects for subsequent rearrest and increasing likelihood of graduation.

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Journal of Drug Issues

Tập 31 Số 1

27-72

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