Circuit Court of Cook County South Suburban Drug Court Service Enhancement

The Circuit Court of Cook County is submitting this application under Category 3: Adult Drug Courts, under BJA-2021-00019PROD for ADCs, and seeks to enhance court operation of the three south suburban ADC, located in Maywood (Fourth Municipal District), Bridgeview (Fifth Municipal District) and Markham (Sixth Municipal District). Under this proposal, the Court intends to enhance court operation by building the program’s capacity to: assess needs, offer practical recovery supports, integrate clinical case management with health literacy and health insurance assistance, and provide targeted evidence-based substance use treatment, including medication-assisted (MAT). The total federal amount being request is $500,000 for 48 months. Under this proposal, the court anticipates serving 80 ADC participants over the four-year funding period.

The model for the three ADC sites reflects an adult felony post-adjudication program wherein defendants are sentenced to 18 to 24 months’ probation with an average length of 20 months of program participation. The target population is male and female adults charged with non-violence, drug-related, felony offenses. Most participants have a signficant criminal history and would otherwise be sentenced to prison upon conviction if not selected for treatment via ADC. The capacity of each ADC site is 45 participants.

Treatment options available to ADC participants include residential treatment, intensive outpatient treatment, MAT, and recovery homes based on assessed level of need. All treatment and recovery support services are provided by agencies that are licensed by the Illinois Department of Human Services’ Division of Substance Use Prevention and Recovery. Several community treatment partners are commits to providing evidence-based MAT for participants diagnosed with opiate and/or alcohol use disorders, specifically buprenorphine and naltrexone.

The ADC model currently addresses all of NADCP’s ADC Best Practice Standards. (Standard I- pages 4, 5; Standard II- pages 4, 8; Standard III- page 7; Standard IV- page 8; Standard V- pages 6, 10, 16; Standard VI- pages 6, 7, 11, 16; Standard VII- pages 8, 15; Standard VIII- page 3; Standard IX- pages 5; Standard X- pages 10, 20).

No other federal funding sources are being leveraged for ADC. The applicant, State of Illinois, Circuit Court of Cook County has previously received Drug Court grant from OJP as follows: Family Drug Court, OJP (2011-DC-BX-007); Juvenile Drug Treatment, OJP (95-DC-WK-0010); Adult Drug Court-Criminal Division (97DCVX0102); Adult Drug Court-4th District (97DCVX0173); and Adult Drug Court-6th District (97DCVX0177); Adult Drug Court - RAP (2013-DC-BX-0005): and Veterans Treatment Court - VTC (2020-VC-BX-0051).