An independent auditor has completed a preliminary report on Waukesha County's Alcohol Treatment Court and finds that the program has met or exceeded most of its goals.

The auditor, a Temple University professor, reported that the court has met virtually all of the performance benchmarks set by the Department of Justice for similar programs.  Most significantly, the court had a 90 percent retention rate -- much higher than initial expectations.

There was one area in which the evaluator found a need for improvement -- the drug court's ties to the community, and the understanding of the program within county government.  These aspects of the program, the auditor concluded, need further attention.

Despite completion of the draft report, a key question about the program remains unanswered -- the extent to which participants achieve long-term sobriety.  The court simply hasn't been around long enough to produce data on recidivism.  However, the auditor did find some promising short-term results.  He reported that "participants appear to achieve sobriety and maintain it while they are in the program," with only three percent of random tests showing positive results for drugs or alcohol.

Furthermore, the auditor observed, only one of the 94 program participants has been re-arrested for drunk driving while under supervision of the court.

These data, in the auditor's view, suggest that long-term results of the alcohol court may also be positive.  However, he cautioned that this preliminary findings need to be verified by further tracking of program graduates over time.

On the down side, the auditor noted that a relatively large number of participants have driven vehicles even though their licenses were revoked.  He stated that 13 percent were arrested for driving after revocation -- and that informal reports suggested the percentage of violations was even higher.

The auditor's preliminary study relied heavily on self-report data from members of the alcohol court treatment team.  Evidently none of the program participants -- the people actually under court supervision -- were interviewed.  Thus, a key source of information about the program apparently remains untapped.

The draft report -- released by the county under an open records request -- was written by Prof. Matthew Hiller of the Temple University Department of Criminal Justice.

You can download the full report here.

Updated May 30, 2008