New Web-Based Evaluation Tool for Drug and DWI Courts

The Treatment Research Institute (TRI) announces release of its Court Evaluation Program, “TRI-CEP,” a web-based, multi-media tool helping judges and other court officials comprehensively evaluate and justify their drug and other problem solving courts. TRI-CEP also includes adaptive features fostering rapid adjustment of supervision and/or treatment conditions based on client status.

Designed to facilitate evidence-based evaluation and continuous improvement, the highly secure TRI-CEP incorporates performance standards outlined by the National Drug Court Institute and suggested by TRI’s own research. Data entry screens are purposely designed for ease of use and programmed to overcome the problem of missing or inaccurate data. Algorithms built into the software organize information into easy-to-interpret client reports that can be used during status hearings and treatment sessions. Also generated by the software are aggregate reports documenting program-wide performance.

The product’s adaptive mechanisms consist of electronically generated messages alerting officials when a change in client status may warrant rewards or sanctions from the bench or transfer to a different level of care by treatment providers. These state-of-the-art features embrace research findings suggesting that interventions for correctional clients need to be unique but not necessarily dissimilar to those for other addiction patients — balanced, sensible, and capable of rapid adaptation when a client is showing signs a change in treatment or supervision is in order.

Principal developers of TRI-CEP are Douglas Marlowe, J.D., Ph.D., Senior Scientist at TRI and NADCP Director of Policy and Research, and David Festinger, Ph.D., Director of TRI’s Section on Law and Ethics. Both are preeminent researchers whose work on drug and other problem solving courts has been widely disseminated throughout the field.

TRI will display TRI-CEP and its sister court product, the Risk and Needs TriageTM  (“RANT”) at the June 10-13 annual NADCP conference in Anaheim, California.