Offender Assessment, Case Planning, and Referral to Community-Based Treatment: Effects of a Structured Process Improvement Initiative

Background CJDATS-2 (Criminal Justice Drug Abuse Treatment Systems), a 5-year multisite national research collaborative funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), targeted implementation of evidence-based approaches for assessing and treating drug abuse within criminal justice settings. The Organizational Process Improvement Intervention, one of the major projects within the collaborative, was an intervention designed to improve the assessment of prisoners, the development of case plans for community services, the transfer of this information to community treatment agencies, and the use of the case plans by community treatment agencies that provide the recommended services. A local change team (LCT) consisting of criminal justice and community treatment staff and a facilitator conducted an organizational needs assessment and then identified and implemented targeted process improvement goals over an 18 to 24-month period.