Adult Drug Courts

Research Analysis : `Adult Drug Courts

Who did the study

The General Accountability Office (GAO ) did the study on Adult Drug Courts . GAO is an agency , operating independently and without any partisan agenda , that works for the U .S . Congress . Its role is to investigate how the federal government appropriates public revenue to aid Congress in deciding over approval of the budget allocation of the federal government and ensure the accountability of the federal government for approved budget allocation . The drug court programs that started in the latter part of the 1980s

(GAO 1 ) comprise one area of budget allocation by the federal government . The purpose of the drug court programs is to prevent recidivism of inmates involved in drug-related crimes . This served as a solution to the exploding prison population and escalating costs to the criminal justice system . The federal government commenced awards or grants to these programs in 1994 through the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act . By September of 2004 , there were already 1 ,200 programs established in the different states and 500 more programs are in the planning stage (GAO 1 ) GAO conducted the study to determine the achievement of the purpose of the federal awards by considering the outcomes of drug court programs as mandated by the appropriations authorization law for the Department of Justice (GAO 2 . The independent and non-partisan character of GAO as well as conducting the evaluations based on a legal mandate contributed to the objectivity of the results

What was the...