Revised July 2013
Overview of Justice System Research Initiatives
NIDA funds a broad portfolio of research addressing drug abuse in the context of the justice system. Drug abuse and crime are highly correlated in both the adult criminal justice system and the juvenile justice system. Estimates suggest that adult offenders have rates of substance abuse and dependence that are more than four times that of the general population. In juvenile justice settings, it is estimated that 50-75% of juveniles were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their offense. In addition a portfolio of independent research projects, NIDA has funded three major multisite initiatives to address the myriad issues at the intersection of the criminal justice system and substance use and abuse. These initiatives include:
- The Juvenile Justice Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS)
- Criminal Justice Drug Abuse Treatment Studies (CJ-DATS)
- Seek, Test, and Treat: Addressing HIV in the Criminal Justice System.
Juvenile Justice Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS)
NIDA’s Juvenile Justice Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS) is a multisite cooperative agreement that launched in 2013. JJ-TRIALS is a seven-site cooperative research program designed to identify and test strategies for improving the delivery of evidence-based substance abuse and HIV prevention and treatment services for justice-involved youth. Virtually all justice-involved youth could benefit from HIV and substance abuse prevention and/or treatment interventions. Many evidence-based interventions targeting adolescent substance abuse and HIV screening, assessment, prevention, and treatment currently exist. Unfortunately, implementation of these interventions within juvenile justice settings is variable, incomplete, and non-systematic at best.
Awardees will develop and execute collaborative multisite studies across a variety of juvenile justice settings, including juvenile probation and drug courts. These studies will provide insight into the process by which juvenile justice and other service settings can successfully adopt and adapt existing evidence-based programs and strategies to improve drug abuse and HIV service delivery for at-risk youth. The cooperative will also field a nationally representative survey of the juvenile justice system that will provide information about policies and practices related to substance use assessment and service delivery in these settings across the United States.
Seven research centers were funded as part of the JJ-TRIALS collaborative: Chestnut Health Systems (PIs: Michael Dennis and Christy Scott), Columbia University (PI: Gail Wasserman), Emory University (PIs: Ralph DiClemente and Gene Brody), Mississippi State University (PI: Angela Robertson), Temple University (PI: Steven Belenko), Texas Christian University (PI: Danica Knight), and the University of Kentucky (PI: Carl Leukefeld).
JJ-TRIALS is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, located in Bethesda, MD. The seven research centers funded as part of the JJ-TRIALS collaborative include Chestnut Health Systems (located in Chicago, IL and Bloomington, IL), Columbia University (in New York City, NY), Emory University (in Atlanta, GA), Mississippi State University (in Missisippi State, MS), Temple University (in Philadelphia, PA), Texas Christian University (in Fort Worth, TX), and the University of Kentucky (in Lexington, KY). Sites that will participate in the JJ-TRIALS initiative are located in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC.Questions about JJ-TRIALS can be addressed to Tisha Wiley.
Overview of the Criminal Justice Drug Abuse Treatment Studies (CJ-DATS) Phase I & II
CJ-DATS (the national Criminal Justice Drug Abuse Treatment Studies) was launched in 2002 and two initiatives (CJ-DATS-1 and CJ-DATS-2) were carried out from 2002 to 2014. The overarching goal of the CJ-DATS cooperative research programs was to improve both public health and public safety outcomes for substance abusing offenders leaving prison or jail and returning to the community by integrating substance abuse treatment into the criminal justice system. At that time CJ-DATS-1 was launched, an estimated 600,000 inmates were released each year in the United States, with approximately two-thirds having substance abuse problems that, if left unaddressed, could increase the risk of relapse and recidivism to crime.
CJ-DATS was designed to identify ways in which these offenders could benefit from the continuum of effective substance abuse treatment services. CJ-DATS tested several strategies for improving drug abuse treatment services through the coordination with criminal justice assessment, monitoring, and supervision activities. Further, the CJ-DATS initiatives were designed to inform the development of models for integrating evidence based substance abuse treatment with the criminal justice system.
CJ-DATS Phase II
CJ-DATS Phase II Research Centers and CJ Partner SitesThe second phase of CJ-DATS, engaging a new cohort of research centers and agency partners, was launched in 2008 with a focus on conducting implementation research in these criminal settings. Specifically, NIDA charged the cooperative with testing implementation strategies that could result in sustained uptake and delivery of services in three domains: (1) delivery of medication-assisted treatment for offenders transitioning to the community; (2) delivery of an HIV continuum of care (i.e., screening and counseling, risk reduction interventions, and continuity of antiretroviral treatment from prison or jail into the community); and (3) implementation of screening and assessment processes to identify offenders with drug abuse and related health problems and to inform their treatment planning and re-entry process.
In each domain, grantees were to focus on organizational and system-level implementation strategies, and to engage both community corrections and community-based treatment providers in a process that would leverage key facilitators, address barriers, and jointly address the public safety concerns of criminal justice agencies with the public health goals of the Institute and the community-based treatment partners. NIDA’s ultimate goal for CJ-DATS is to identify implementation strategies that maximize the likelihood of sustained delivery of evidence-based practices to improve offender drug abuse and HIV outcomes, and to decrease their risk of incarceration.
CJ-DATS Phase I
CJ-DATS Phase I Research CentersFrom 2002 through 2008, CJ-DATS-1 researchers from 9 research centers, a coordinating center, and NIDA worked together with federal, state, and local criminal justice partners to develop and test integrated approaches to the treatment of offenders with drug use disorders.
Seek, Test, and Treat: Addressing HIV in the Criminal Justice System (STTR-CJ)
The Seek, Test, and Treat: Addressing HIV in the Criminal Justice System (STTR-CJ) funds twelve R01 applications that empirically test the “seek, test, treat, and retain” paradigm with drug abusers in criminal justice populations. Researchers are developing, implementing, and testing strategies to increase HIV testing and the provision of HAART to HIV seropositive individuals involved with the criminal justice system, with particular focus on continuity of HAART during and after community re-entry following incarceration.
For more information, see: Seek, Test, Treat and Retain
Resources
Bibliography
CJ-DATS Data
- CJ DATS data is archived at ICPSR: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NAHDAP/series/00244
Related RFAs
- CJ-DATS Phase 1: RFA-DA-02-011
- CJ-DATS Phase 2: RFA-DA-08-002 and RFA-DA-09-006
- JJ-TRIALS RFA: RFA-DA-13-009
- STTR-CJ RFA: RFA-DA-10-017
