U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
National Institute of Justice
R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f
National Institute of Justice
Jeremy Travis, Director
continued…
Evaluation of the D.C. Superior
Court Drug Intervention Programs
By Adele Harrell, Shannon Cavanagh, and John Roman
April 2000
referred to community-based treatment,
if needed or desired.
The Center for Substance Abuse Treat-
ment and the National Institute of Justice
funded an evaluation to examine the pro-
grams’ impact on eligible defendants—
the target group—and those who agreed
to participate in the two intervention ser-
vices. Key components common to all
three dockets were early intervention, fre-
quent drug testing, judicial monitoring of
each defendant’s progress, and a comput-
erized system that provided judges imme-
diate access to defendants’ drug test
results.
The study found reductions in drug use
during pretrial release for defendants in
both experimental dockets, reductions in
arrests during the year after sentencing
for sanctions program participants, and
reductions in drug-related social prob-
lems for treatment program participants.
Supporting research
Specialized drug dockets, often in the
form of drug courts, have emerged in a
number of jurisdictions, supported by
research indicating that:
● Drug use is directly linked to
crime. Drug-using offenders are
In 1993, the Washington, D.C., Superior
Court embarked on an ambitious experi-
ment to test court-based interventions for
drug-involved defendants.1 During the
experiment, all drug felony defendants were
randomly assigned to one of three dockets
the court had established in 1992 to expe-
dite the handling of drug cases. Each
docket offered different services as follows:
● The standard docket continued to handle
drug cases in a routine manner (which
included twice-weekly drug tests and
judicial monitoring), while the other
two offered new intervention services
in addition to drug testing and judicial
monitoring.
● The treatment doc