Access to Adult Drug and Veterans Treatment Court Programs for High-Risk/High-Need Populations and Data Management Improvement Project

The Maryland Administrative Office of Courts’ Office of Problem Solving Courts (OPSC) requests funding in the amount of $1,500,000 over four years pursuant to O-BJA-2021-46003 funding Category 4 (Statewide) to plan for, acquire and implement: (1) a validated, risk/need assessment tool (assessment tool) and; (2) a new problem-solving court case management information system (MIS) capable of supporting the integration and application requirements of the assessment tool. The grant service area includes 20 of Maryland’s 24 counties, 18 circuit and 7 district court locations co-located with post-adjudication adult drug (ADC) or veterans treatment (VTC) type B courts or both. Seventy-eight percent of grant funding ($1,171,875) will be allocated to the service area’s 25 ADC and 22% ($328,125) of the funding will be allocated to 7 VTC type B. In the four years from FY 2017 – FY 2020, 4,052 individuals participated in Maryland’s ACD and VTC. Of the 2,848 discharged participants, the minimum, maximum and average time spent in the program was 221  days, 694 days, and 547 days respectively.
     All OPSC ADC and VTC jurisdictions provide drug court treatment services consistent with the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) best practices including access to medication-assisted treatment (MAT) services. Six pilot courts will institute special implementation of the assessment tool by offering pre-adjudication risk/need assessments to all non-violent criminal offenders. Remaining courts will have discretion regarding which non-violent criminal offenders are offered the assessment and the juncture in which the assessment is offered. Both pilot and non-pilot courts will utilize the assessment tool to identify and refer to ADC or VTC, high-risk/high-need offenders as defined by NADCP target population best practice. OPSC expects to produce the following deliverables consistent with NADCP best practices and O-BJA-2021-46003 grant objectives: (1) expanded capacity and increased participation of high-risk/high-need substance abusing non-violent offenders in 25 ADC and 7 VTC programs (page 3); (2) improved processing time efficiency of referral and entry to ADC and VTC (page 4); increased demographic diversity of referrals to ADC and VTC (page 4); and improved adherence to NADCP Monitoring and Evaluation best practice (page 4).  
     OPSC previously received OJP grants in 2011 (2011-DC-BX-0132) and 2015 (2015-DC-BX-0062). OPSC is not leveraging additional federal funds at this time.