NCJ Number
255595
Date Published
2010
Length
2 pages
Annotation
This profile of the Jackson County (Oregon) Community Family Court (CFC) encompasses its goals, features, measured impact, and cost.
Abstract
This specialized court is for parents whose children are wards of the state. It is a type of problem-solving court that has the essential components of the adult drug court model. The CFC's components include regular court hearings, intensive judicial supervision, timely referral to a substance abuse treatment program, frequent drug testing, and rewards and sanctions linked to program compliance. CFC teams include representatives of the county's child welfare system, the judicial system, and treatment systems. Substance-abusing parents can be referred to CFC by public defenders, the district attorney, judges, a mental health agency, child welfare caseworkers, and other participating agencies. An impact evaluation of the CFC found that participating parents had statistically significant improvements in treatment outcomes and lower rates of rearrest compared with control parents. Children of participating parents experienced statistically significant improvement in child welfare outcomes compared with children of control-group participants. The cost analysis found that the average cost of the CFC was $12,147 per participant. Outcome costs were calculated for various factors, such as rearrests, jail time, probation/parole time, outpatient drug treatment days, residential treatment days, and foster care days. Only costs to taxpayers were calculated. The cost analysis found that regardless of whether a CFC participant graduates, the cost is 15.85 percent less per participant than for members of the comparison group.