Purpose: The State of Colorado Judicial Department contracted with NPC to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of Colorado’s adult drug court and DWI court programs, and to that end adopted an evaluation methodology model and collected data in each of the said courts in two data collection managed information systems.
Project Design: NPC performed an online survey of all Colorado’s drug and DWI courts to gather basic information on program practices and used this information in conjunction with the program services data and recidivism data to answer the evaluation questions put forth by the Colorado Judicial Department. These questions included:
1. What are the significant characteristics of participants that entered Colorado’s drug court programs?
2. How successful are the problem solving courts? Specifically:
- Did the drug courts provide the intended services to their participants?
- What are the graduation rates of Colorado’s drug courts?
- What are the recidivism (re-arrest) rates of Colorado’s drug courts? Are drug court participants rearrested less often than offenders who have not participated in drug court?
3. What are the components of the problem solving court? For example,
- Who is on the drug court team?
- Who attends staffings?
- Overall, what practices are Colorado’s drug courts engaging in? How do these practices relate to program outcomes?
4. What are the components of the probation program within the problem solving court?
Funding Source: Colorado Judicial Department
Start Date: September 2011
NPC Project Team
Principal Investigator / Project Director
Project Coordinators
Mary Beth Sanders, B.S.
Data Analyst