The TASC-Drug Treatment Program Connection

Abstract

Abstract In dealing with drug addicts, the criminal justice system appears to do little more than foster a cycle of “addiction-arrest-release-renewed addiction-rearrest.” The federally sponsored Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime (TASC) program was established with the aim of breaking this cycle. The objective of this program was to identify criminal offenders with drug problems and refer them for treatment, rather than to process them through the criminal justice system. Most of the research that has been conducted on TASC has focused on the benefits of TASC to the criminal justice system and to TASC clients. Little attention has been paid to the possible adverse affects of TASC drug treatment operations and objectives. In this article, the authors examine the impact of the implementation of a TASC project on drug treatment program objectives and operations and find that despite an increase in the size and various changes in the composition of the client population, the influx of TASC-rcfcrred drug abusers did not decrease program effectiveness.