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7 Just. Rsch. & Pol'y 1 (2005)

handle is hein.journals/jcerhadp7 and id is 1 raw text is: 0 A BENEFIT-COST ANALYSIS OF THE KINGS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE DRUG TREATMENT ALTERNATIVE TO PRISON (DTAP) PROGRAM Gary A. Zarkin Laura J. Dunlap RTI International Steven Belenko Treatment Research Institute Paul A. Dynia New York City Human Resources Administration 0 Abstract In October 1990, the Kings County (Brooklyn, NY) District Attorney's Office imple- mented the Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison (DTAP) program to divert nonvio- lent felony drug offenders from prison to community-based residential drug treat- ment. This article presents an estimate of the costs and benefits of the DTAP program based on a cohort of DTAP participants and prison comparisons who entered treat- ment or prison in 1995-1996 and were tracked for 6 years. The analysis focuses on the criminal justice system (CJS) costs associated with criminal recidivism. Findings show that the DTAP program is cost-beneficial compared to the usual criminal jus- tice process (benefit-cost ratio equals 2.17 after 6 years). This research was supported by grant number R01-DA09075 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) through a subcontract with The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. The conclusions and opinions ex- pressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not represent the views of NIDA, RTI International, Treatment Research Institute, CASA, the New York City Human Re- sources Administration, or the Kings County District Attorney's Office. JUSTICE RESEARCH AND POLICY, Vol. 7, No. 1 © 2005 Justice Research and Statistics Association