Initial implementation of California's Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act: Findings from focus...

Initial implementation of California’s Substance Abuse and Crime

Prevention Act: Findings from focus groups in ten counties

Mary Hardy, Cheryl Teruya, Douglas Longshore*, Yih-Ing Hser

UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs, Neuropsychiatric Institute, 1640 South Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 200, Los Angeles, CA 90025, USA

Received 18 July 2003; received in revised form 14 February 2004; accepted 31 March 2004

Abstract

California’s voter-initiated Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (SACPA) mandated a large-scale criminal justice policy

shift, offering community-based, court-monitored treatment for non-violent drug-involved adult offenders in lieu of incarceration. In

this article, we analyze implementation issues that arose during SACPA’s first year. Issues were identified in focus groups conducted

with stakeholders in 10 counties. For the analysis we adapted Winter’s [Winter, S. (1990). Integrating implementation research. In

D. J. Palumbo & D. J. Calista (Eds.), Implementation and the policy process: Opening up the black box (pp. 19–38). New York:

Greenwood Press] framework for studying policy implementation to focus on policy interpretation, target group behavior, agency and

interagency implementation practices, and ‘street-level bureaucrats.’ Among the issues examined are: local control; drug court

influences; high need clients; interagency communication and cooperation; filing and prosecution of cases; infusion of the therapeutic

ethos; interagency assessment teams; monitoring and reporting; service delivery problems and solutions; insufficient resources; and

staff workload and burnout.

q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Criminal justice; Focus groups; Interagency collaboration; Policy reform; Program implementation; Substance abuse treatment

1. Introduction

Proposition 36 (known popularly as ‘Prop 36’) was passed

by the California electorate in November 2000 and enacted

into law as the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act

(SACPA). Adult defendants, probationers, and parolees

convicted of ‘simple drug possession or drug-use offenses’

and otherwise eligible for SACPA can now be sentenced to

probation with drug treatment instead of either probation

without treatment or incarceration. After completion of

treatment, defendants may petition the sentencing court to set

aside the conviction. Probationers or parolees who violate

drug-related conditions of their release may also receive

treatment instead of incarceration.

0149-7189/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2004.03.001

* Corresponding author. Tel.: C1 310 445 0874; fax: C1 310 473 7885.

E-mail address: [email protected] (D. Longshore).

SACPA mandated a large-scale shift in the state’s

criminal justice policy and is part of a national trend

toward community-based, court-monitored treatment for

drug-involved offenders. Because California has the

largest prison system and one of the largest drug

treatment systems in the nation, assessments of SACPA’s

implementation and outcomes are likely to play a

significant role in ongoing criminal justice and treatment

policy debates. In this article, we analyze implementation

issues that arose during SACPA’s first year. Issues were

identified in focus groups conducted in 10 California

counties as part of an independent SACPA evaluation.

For the analysis we adapted Winter’s (1990) framework

for studying policy implementation. Our framework,

developed inductively from focus group data, explores

four sociopolitical processes: policy interpretation,

target group behavior, agency and interagency implemen-

tation practices, and street-level bureaucratic behavior

(see Fig. 1).

Evaluation and Program Planning 28 (2005) 221–232

www.elsevier.com/locate/evalprogplan

http://www.elsevier.com/locate/evalprogplan

Implementation Process

Outputs Outcomes

Agency & interagencyimplementationpractices

Street-levelbureaucraticbehavior

Targetgroupbehavior

ImplementationResults

PolicyFormation

Policyinterpretation

Fig. 1. SACPA Implementation Framework. Adapted from Winter (1990, p. 20).

M. Hardy et al. / Evaluation and Program Planning 28 (2005) 221–232222

2. Background

2.1. Criminal justice policy implementation

Public dissatisfaction with criminal justice policy

concerning non-violent drug offenders has led to ballot

initiatives in Arizona1 and California offering commu-

nity-based, court-monitored treatment in lieu of

incarceration. Similar efforts are underway in other states

(Piper, Briggs, Huffman, & Lubot-Cook, 2003). These

initiatives depart from other policy changes, notably

‘three strikes’ (Zimring, Hawkins, & Kamin, 2001), in

calling for decreased or delayed use of punitive sanctions

instead of increased sanction severity. On the other hand,

initiatives such as SACPA continue a 30-year trend

toward closer collaboration between criminal justice and

substance abuse treatment, which is contributing to ‘the

infusion of the therapeutic ethos into America’s criminal

justice system’ (Nolan, 1998, p. 77). The history of

criminal justice and treatment collaboration is marked by

recurring challenges to successful implementation, as

agencies with inherently different missions and interests

are required to work together in a climate of limited

resources.

1 Arizona’s Drug Medicalization, Prevention and Control Act (Prop-

osition 200) was passed in 1996.

Under civil commitment programs in the 1960s and

1970s, individuals charged with non-violent drug offenses

were committed to treatment in lieu of criminal

prosecution. Follow-up studies of the California program

showed reduced daily narcotic use, lower rates of

rearrest and self-reported crime, and higher rates of

employment for those who completed treatment

compared to those who entered but were released on a

writ of habeas corpus after only minimal treatment

(Anglin, 1988). On the other hand, New York’s program

was hampered by several problems, including the high

cost of taking over prisons and staffing them with

preexisting high-paid prison staff; assignment of judges

with little understanding of addiction; lack of systematic

screening of clients; lack of addiction expertise within

the agency responsible for implementation; problems

making referrals to medical, other treatment, and criminal

justice agencies; client abscondence; and inadequate

planning (Winick, 1988).

In the 1980s, the number of drug-related arrests and

filings increased dramatically, which precipitated the

founding of the drug court movement in 1989 in Florida.

Drug courts link offenders to community-based treatment

and attempt to integrate treatment with criminal justice

supervision (Peyton & Gossweiler, 2001). While drug

courts vary, Nolan writes that the most significant difference

between drug courts and other diversion programs is that

‘the court room, rather than the clinic, is the focal point of

M. Hardy et al. / Evaluation and Program Planning 28 (2005) 221–232 223

treatment’ (2002, p. vii).2 Some studies found that post-

program rearrest rates are lower for drug court graduates

than for similar offenders not processed in drug court and for

drug court participants who drop out or are terminated

(Belenko, 1998, 1999; Gottfredson & Exum, 2002).

However, other studies found no difference in recidivism

between offenders randomly assigned to drug court or

probation (Deschenes, Turner, & Greenwood, 1995) and

between drug court participants and similar offenders not

processed in drug court (Granfield, Eby, & Brewster, 1998).

Deschenes et al. (1995) found that drug court participants

had fewer contacts with criminal justice personnel and were

given fewer drug tests than the control group, suggesting

that the lack of distinguishable outcomes might be rooted in

implementation problems (see also Harrell, Mitchell, Hirst,

Marlowe, & Merrill, 2001).

In the late 1990s, the Office of National Drug Control

Policy and the National Institute of Justice funded three

Breaking The Cycle (BTC) demonstration projects. BTC

linked offenders to treatment while employing graduated

sanctions to enforce drug abstinence. Unlike drug court,

BTC was not a voluntary program. It was a system-level

intervention intended to handle all drug-using felony

defendants. An evaluation of the first BTC site, in

Birmingham, Alabama, showed significant reductions in

self-reported crime and drug use 9 months after program

entry and reductions in arrests during the year after program

entry (Harrell et al., 2001). However, BTC faced a number

of implementation challenges, including court backlogs that

contributed to judicial reluctance to holding review

hearings, lack of incentives for state-level agencies to

participate, lack of technology to support client tracking and

interagency information sharing, and lack of the interagency

collaboration on problem-solving.

Experience with criminal justice policy innovations such

as these suggests that quality of implementation is pivotal to

success (Anglin, 1988; Elliott, 1998; Wellisch et al., 1993,

1995). But collaborative efforts can be difficult when they

require new relationships among stakeholders who have

differing philosophies, priorities, and expertise; who wield

unequal political clout; and who operate from distinct

organizational cultures (Belenko, 2000, 2001; Center for

Substance Abuse Treatment, 1994; Musheno, Palumbo,

Maynard-Moody, & Levine, 1989; Prendergast & Burdon,

2002). Moreover, the boundaries separating public agencies

are typically ‘fuzzy’ (Sutton, 1994). Their interests overlap;

and the scope and limits of their authority are often

indefinite and guided by arrangements and decision-rules

2 Drug courts typically include: (1) dedicated courtrooms; (2) judicial

supervision of community-based treatment; (3) timely identification of

defendants in need of treatment; (4) regular status hearings before a judicial

officer to monitor treatment progress and compliance with treatment

requirements; (5) mandatory drug testing; (6) graduated sanctions and

rewards designed to increase accountability; and (7) dismissal of the case or

a reduced sentence upon successful program completion (Belenko, 2000).

that are informal and subject to change (Wolf, 2002). At the

same time, resources are often fragmented and stretched

thin, which can lead to ‘turf’ wars among agencies (Elliott,

1998). Clients referred to drug treatment by criminal justice

are typically supervised by probation and parole authorities

and referred to vocational, educational, mental health, and

other programs as well. Agencies serving these functions

may have difficulty handling the influx of clients and

communicating and sharing information across agencies.

Innovations requiring criminal justice and treatment

collaboration often founder as a result (Musheno et al.,

1989; Nolan, 2002).

3. California’s Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention

Act

Prop 36 was passed by 61% of California’s voters,

despite opposition from key politicians including the

governor, the attorney general, one of the state’s senators,

many major newspapers, nearly all of the state’s sheriffs and

district attorneys,3 the California Correctional Peace

Officer’s Association, and a number of treatment advocates

(Domanick, 2003).

Especially controversial during the Prop 36 campaign

was the proposed reduction in sanction severity at

sentencing (Speiglman, Klein, Miller, & Noble, 2003). In

addition, consequences of offender noncompliance

depended on terms not strictly defined. ‘Nondrug violations’

could result in immediate discharge from the program and

re-sentencing. However, those who committed ‘drug

violations’ could remain in the program unless found by

the court to be a ‘danger to others’ or ‘not amenable to

treatment.’ Consequences of drug violations (e.g. an

increase in treatment intensity; revocation of probation/

parole) depended on the severity and number of such

violations. SACPA prohibited judges from incarcerating

offenders based solely on their first or second positive drug

test. Finally, while the statute permanently changed

sentencing law, it allocated $120 million of state general

funds for 5 years only. How this allocation was to be

distributed across county agencies was not stipulated, but

no SACPA funds could be used for drug testing. In

these circumstances, problems typically encountered

in implementation of new criminal justice policy

(e.g. conflicting interpretations, lack of interagency

cooperation, and limited resources) loomed especially large.

Before receiving their annual SACPA funding allocation,

counties are required to submit implementation plans to the

state Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs (ADP) for

review and approval. Each plan specifies procedures

for client referral, monitoring, assessment, treatment

placement, and delivery of other services. Under SACPA,

3 Only San Francisco’s district attorney publicly supported Prop 36.


clients may receive up to one year of treatment and 6 months

of aftercare. Drug treatment programs serving clients must

be licensed or certified by ADP. In addition, clients may be

ordered to participate in vocational training, family

counseling, literacy classes and/or community service as a

condition of their probation (California State Department,

2000). Within these parameters, implementation can be

planned and carried out in accord with local organizational

structures, practices, resources, and needs.

An evaluation of SACPA was mandated in Prop 36.

Spanning January 1, 2001 to June 30, 2006, the evaluation

covers four domains: cost-offset, outcomes, implemen-

tation, and lessons learned. Data are being collected in

surveys of county representatives; observation (e.g. record-

ing of issues raised, perceptions noted, decisions and

agreements reached) at meetings, conferences, and other

events; county records; and statewide datasets maintained

by social service and criminal justice agencies. While much

of this information is being collected from all of the state’s

58 counties, 10 counties (Alameda, Kern, Los Angeles,

Mendocino, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa

Clara, Shasta, and Ventura) volunteered to participate in

more intensive data collection activities, such as a survey of

offenders and focus group discussions with stakeholders.

Together, these 10 counties encompass a mix of urban and

rural populations, a wide range of geographic regions,

diverse implementation strategies, and roughly half of the

state’s SACPA defendants. Findings from the first round

of focus groups in these 10 counties are presented in

this article.4

4. Method

Focus groups were conducted from October to December

2002 to gain an in-depth understanding of stakeholders’

experience with SACPA during its first year. Members of

the counties’ SACPA implementation committees were

invited to participate. These committees were composed of

representatives of drug and alcohol program administration,

probation, the courts, prosecutors, public defenders, state

parole agents working in the county, treatment providers,

and others. We considered one focus group per county to be

sufficient because the target group was implementation

committees; in nine of 10 counties all or nearly all members

attended the focus group.5 Results of background surveys

completed by participants are provided in Table 1.

Focus group topics were reviewed by stakeholders at a

special forum for the 10 counties at a statewide technical

assistance conference held in September, 2002. A pilot

4 For more detailed information about the ongoing SACPA evaluation,

please see Longshore et al. (2002); Longshore (2002); Longshore et al.

(2003).5 In one focus group, the judge, district attorney, and public defender

were not present.

focus group was conducted in order to test and refine

procedures and the moderator’s guide. Focus groups lasting

between 1.5 and 2.5 haws were then held at county sites.

Participants were asked to use aliases during the sessions in

an effort to maintain confidentiality on audiotapes. The

researchers assured participants that no individual or county

would be identified in findings. Discussion topics covered

the most important changes experienced and the effect of

those changes on the county agencies involved, policies and

practices adopted in discretionary areas (e.g. the filing and

prosecution of cases, treatment levels, monitoring of

clients), barriers and successes encountered, and lessons

learned. During the discussions, an assistant took written

notes, and a moderator charted the participants’ responses

for the group, highlighting the main issues and themes.

Following each focus group, the moderator and assistant

produced a summary of key points. Audiotapes of the

discussion were transcribed verbatim and reviewed for

accuracy. Patterns within and across the 10 focus-group

transcripts were systematically analyzed using established

qualitative research procedures (Marshall & Rossman,

1995). Major themes arising in nearly all groups were

gleaned from the analysis. A broad range of experiences and

beliefs, illustrated by verbatim quotes, were incorporated

into a report, which was distributed to participants for

comment, in an effort to confirm findings (Denzin, 1970). In

addition, preliminary findings were presented, and the

ensuing discussion was documented, in another special

forum for the 10 counties at a statewide technical assistance

conference held in February, 2003.

4.1. Analytic framework

Frameworks for analyzing policy implementation have

been developed largely from case studies, and a wide range

of potentially significant variables has been identified

(Hill & Hupe, 2002; Sabatier & Mazmanian, 1980; Van

Horn & Van Meter, 1977). Recognizing this problem,

Winter (1990) developed an analytic framework that

focuses on key sociopolitical processes involved in

implementation. Working inductively from our report of

preliminary findings, we adapted Winter’s framework to

examine four processes: policy interpretation, target group

behavior, agency and interagency implementation, and

street-level bureaucratic behavior (see Fig. 1 above).

Understanding implementation first requires delving into

how a policy is interpreted in areas left open to discretion.

Characteristics and responses of the group targeted by the

policy are important as well. In SACPA, the target group is

adults convicted of drug possession and similar

charges. Agency and interagency implementation practices,

including relations within and across agencies and

implementation strategies developed in local contexts,

are especially critical. Finally, ‘street-level bureaucrats,’

officials who interact with the public and exercise a

considerable amount of discretion day-to-day, play an

Table 1

Focus Group Participants’ Characteristics (nZ136)

% %

Gender Stakeholder Affiliation

Male 53 County Alcohol and Drug Administration 26

Female 47 Probation 14

Race/Ethnicity The Court/Court Administration 12

Black/African American 5 Treatment Provider 10

White 75 District Attorney’s Office 7

Hispanic/Latino 10 Public Defender’s Office 6

Asian/Pacific Islander 4 County Administration/Executive Office 5

Native American 4 Information Technology/Data Specialist 4

Multi-racial/ethnic 2 Local Parole Division 4

Educational Status Law Enforcement 3

High School Diploma/GED 9 Tribal-operated Agency 3

Associate’s Degree 13 Other (e.g. Client Advocacy, Mental Health, Social Services, Consultants) 6

Bachelor’s Degree 31

Master’s Degree 20 Age Range: 29-67 years

Juris Doctorate 22 Mean Age: 51 (SDZ7)

PhD/Professional Degree 4

MD 1


essential role. SACPA’s street-level bureaucrats include law

enforcement officers, parole agents, public defenders,

prosecutors, judges, assessment/referral staff, probation

officers, and treatment counselors.

5. Findings

5.1. Policy interpretation

The task of policy interpretation fell to SACPA

implementation committees at the county level. Committees

reportedly began work by identifying implementation

problems that might arise and then devised strategies to

avoid or ameliorate these effects. The following features of

SACPA were of particular concern to focus group

participants.

5.1.1. Local control

Participants felt that having the freedom to take local

circumstances and needs into account when implementing

SACPA was essential. One county official underscored the

importance of developing local protocols:

“We determine for ourselves what would work for our

county. So we take our local values and we take our local

work ethics, we take what’s going to work for us.That’s

probably the best thing about Prop 36, the way it is written,

is that it allows us to not have to follow some prescription,

somebody else’s definition of what successful completion

[is]. that’s critical.”

Also, participants said that the handling of parolees had

markedly improved since the Board of Prison Terms gave

local parole departments jurisdiction. In a state as diverse as

California, a rigid or uniform implementation plan

would have failed, some suggested. This viewpoint is

consistent with research emphasizing the importance of

adapting policies and procedures to local circumstances in

order to realize intended outcomes (Morash, 1982; Musheno

et al., 1989).

5.1.2. Drug court influences

When determining how SACPA would be implemented,

participants from seven of the 10 counties reported building

on interagency relationships and lessons learned in drug

court. For example, in one county, stakeholders drew on their

drug court evaluation to create a SACPA implementation

plan with a revamped system of care. Moreover, participants

in half of the counties believed that their success was

related to the degree to which SACPA regulations and

resources allowed them to adhere to a drug court model. To

articulate a common goal across agencies, the SACPA

implementation committee in one county explicitly adopted

a ‘therapeutic justice’ approach; another committee defined

an ‘accountability-treatment’ ethos.

One of the most controversial aspects of SACPA was the

prohibition against incarcerating clients solely on the basis

of their first or second positive drug test (Speiglman et al.,

2003). In drug courts, no such prohibition exists. Although

stakeholders reported that most SACPA offenders were

more responsive to treatment than expected, they felt that

SACPA was not serving well those offenders deemed to

require immediate punishment for noncompliance. A

treatment director explained:

“The Proposition went too far, from my standpoint, in that it

removed too much ability of the court to intervene . There

is this percentage of the population that needs just a little

more push than can be given early on in Prop 36, that is


permitted in drug court situations, that has proven to be very

effective.”

Some criminal justice participants felt that some

offenders were abusing the system and maintained that

SACPA’s conservative use of sanctions exacerbated this

problem, creating a ‘revolving door’ of offenders. In

contrast, other stakeholders felt that when recidivism

statistics were analyzed, SACPA would prove more

effective than anticipated. One probation chief explained

that an analysis of local data on theft arrests showed that

SACPA was efficacious. S/he felt strongly that careful

analyses of SACPA’s impact should be provided to law

enforcement personnel who remained skeptical of

SACPA.

A related issue was the broad net that SACPA cast

over drug-involved offenders. In contrast, many drug

courts employ stricter exclusion criteria (e.g. two or more

prior felony convictions; ability to pay for treatment).6

Although SACPA excludes defendants who have been

convicted of ‘serious or violent’ felonies and/or mis-

demeanors involving injury or threat of injury to another

within the past 5 years, some stakeholders, particularly

judges and probation officers, contended that offenders

with extensive criminal histories should be excluded

from SACPA. They argued that SACPA was not

designed to provide the oversight and sanctions necessary

for these offenders. As one judge put it:

“Maybe there ought to be some careful screening based on

criminal record other than just strikes. Or perhaps, well,

maybe .partially close the door to not let everybody in

who just happens to get picked up [for] drugs this time and

has got a string of serious and lengthy prison terms . It just

frosts me that I have to do that, but that’s what’s happened

. I think this is a serious problem.[We are] squandering

at least half our money on people not ready for treatment.”

A defense attorney suggested employing more sensi-

tive assessments in order to distinguish between offenders

whose criminal behavior is driven by addiction and

offenders whose drug use is incidental to their crimi-

nality. Debates concerning which offenders should

qualify for SACPA will likely continue and may need

to be clarified by case law. This finding supports the

observation by Musheno et al. (1989) that reserving

alternatives to imprisonment to the lowest risk offenders

tends to be ineffective in reducing incarceration rates, but

it does serve to reduce ‘the chances of politically

embarrassing cases of recidivism by community correc-

tions clients’ (p. 143; see also Lipsky, 1980).

6 See, for example, Hoffman (2002, p. 68), who argues that Denver’s

exceptional ‘all-comers drug court,’ coupled with a marked increase in

arrests and filings for simple drug possession, led to an unintended net-

widening that overwhelmed the courts.

Participants in three counties said that some members

of their implementation committees had been or con-

tinued to be opposed to a drug court model for SACPA.

Participants in one county felt that the drug court legacy

had impeded SACPA implementation. The local bench,

which favored use of a drug court model, remained at

odds with those who opposed it because of concerns that

SACPA resources could not sustain an intensive court-

centered program. Similarly, in another county, a

participant suggested that a ‘cultural conflict’ occurred

as some committee members attempted to follow a drug

court model while others opposed this approach. In a

third county, in which the main SACPA judge was

philosophically opposed to assuming the role of a drug

court judge, stakeholders worked out an alternative

approach, to which no one openly objected. Regardless

of participants’ perspectives on the role of drug court,

many said that SACPA implementation was shaped in

significant ways by the counties’ drug court experience.

In sum, participants reported that they spent consider-

able time on local interpretation of SACPA. As

stakeholders ironed out the details, some struggled with

explicit features of SACPA (e.g. relatively conservative

use of incarceration; inclusive eligibility criteria). In all

counties, drug court was a major influence. Some

stakeholders were frustrated by what they perceived as

vague elements in SACPA. Morash observes that because

‘policies that seek to influence criminal justice practices

are the result of heated moral debate over the handling

of offenders, . the details of standards may be omitted

or left ambiguous or even contradictory to the policy

intent in order to avoid inflaming disagreements’ (1982,

p. 15). Thus, the details of SACPA’s standards were

being worked out through case law and within each

county’s interagency implementation committees and

workgroups.

5.2. Target group behavior

Since most public policy is designed to address

problems of a target group, that group’s characteristics

and likely responses to policy change are major factors

affecting implementation (Winter, 1990). The unexpected

number of high-need offenders eligible for SACPA was

reportedly a problem in all counties. In addition to

underestimating the severity of addiction among eligible

offenders, stakeholders also found that many SACPA

clients had multiple interacting problems (e.g. unemploy-

ment, mental illness, homelessness, low literacy).

Because these clients ‘eat up’ resources, some counties

spent more than expected, even when the number of

clients served was lower than expected. Stakeholders

reported that the effect of this large number of high-need

offenders was straining their monitoring, reporting, and

service delivery systems. Participants’ discussions of


implementation strategies, which are explored in the next

section, convey this ripple effect.7

5.3. Agency and interagency implementation practices

According to Winter (1990), researchers tend to focus on

conflicts of interest within and between agencies as a major

barrier to implementation but are less attentive to how

collaboration can facilitate implementation. Focus group

participants commonly conveyed the benefits of increased

interagency collaboration and communication, although

some stakeholders in one county saw the need to collaborate

as a major obstacle. A judge described SACPA as

“one of the best collaborations we have ever had. where

we really have worked directly on an issue that’s solving

problems and making changes and developing.”

Even stakeholders who reported substantial frustration in

working across agencies saw value in opening lines of

communication. Although many staff members pointed out

that patience and effort had been required to build

collaborative networks, they also felt that without the

resulting trust and knowledge they would not have been as

successful in implementing SACPA. Many stakeholders felt

they benefited from increased understanding between

stakeholders; one likened the SACPA implementation

process to ‘a blending of cultures.’

“[SACPA implementation] also involves new relationships

with other agencies and a lot of blending of cultures,

attempting to explain what our priorities are, listening to

other people when they talk about their priorities, finding ways

to compromise and allow us to work together effectively.”

The importance of collaboration and communication was

highlighted throughout participants’ discussions of specific

implementation practices.

5.3.1. Filing and prosecution of cases

A majority of participants reported no changes in the way

cases in their counties were being filed and prosecuted. Many

prosecutors said that they neither added charges to make a

defendant ineligible nor dropped charges to make him/her

eligible for SACPA. One public defender mentioned that

because the local prosecutor had been opposed to SACPA,

7 SACPA clients entering treatment in the first year had drug histories

longer than non-SACPA clients referred to treatment by criminal justice but

similar to other clients entering treatment (Longshore et al., 2003). In their

examination of early implementation of SACPA in eight counties,

Speiglman, Klein, Miller, and Noble asked whether stakeholder reports

of large numbers of ‘hard-core’ offenders are related to ‘counties’ strategic

arguments that they lack the resources to serve this population, or are they

related to local fears that their programs’ ultimate success rates will fall?’

(2003, p. 139).

s/he ‘fear[ed]’ that the prosecutor would attempt to

exclude clients by filing additional, exclusionary charges

and ‘compliment[ed]’ the prosecutor for not doing so.

Stakeholders from several counties said that their charging

practices had become more expansive (e.g. allowing in

driving-with-a-suspended-license charges and including

cases retroactively8) and flexible (e.g. charges were dismissed

on a case-by-case basis) to the point of being ‘generous’ as one

probation official put it, although not all participants reported

that prosecutors were willing to negotiate on charges.

Moreover, some defense attorneys and a few judges

suggested that prosecutors were not consistent in filing

charges or prosecuting cases. For example, one defense

attorney noted a marked regional disparity in the number of

SACPA defendants within his/her county and suggested that

this difference might be rooted in prosecutors’ filing and/or

police officers’ surveillance and arrest practices. Another

defense attorney reported that the courts in her/his county

function like autonomous ‘fiefdoms’; the handling of cases

varies across individual courts and regions. In another

county, defense counsel said that the district attorney

seemed to be excluding most methamphetamine cases by

adding a possession-to-sell charge. This defense attorney

also mentioned that charges tended to be filed on the basis of

prior knowledge of the defendant and his/her family within

the community. He/she concluded:

“I think there’s an animosity.towards Proposition 36 in the

district attorney’s office, and.one of the ways of coping

with it is to overcharge drug cases.so that they will not be

Prop 36 eligible.”

5.3.2. Infusion of the therapeutic ethos

Participants noted that interagency communication

spurred by SACPA led to a widespread shift in attitude

among criminal justice personnel from identifying as an

‘arm of law enforcement’ toward becoming more ‘client-

centered’ and ‘treatment-oriented.’ According to

one probation officer, ‘professionalism has really been

heightened.’ In some counties, training on the nature of

addiction and treatment as well as the collaboration with

treatment staff contributed to a ‘cultural shift.’ For example,

the assistant district attorney in one county developed an in-

house library of materials on addiction from which

prosecutors working on SACPA cases were assigned

materials to read. Probation officers in another county

were able to attend special trainings and conferences, while

training for SACPA judges and commissioners with no prior

knowledge of treatment was reportedly critical in two

counties. For some criminal justice staff in several counties,

8 The decision to allow in defendants who were arrested but not

prosecuted prior to July 2001, when the statute went into effect, was made

on appeal.


however, orienting toward treatment and away from

punishment continued to be ‘a big hurdle.’

Along with a shift in attitudes about treatment, many

prosecutors and public defenders described a change in their

relationships, moving from traditional adversaries to

SACPA collaborators. However, the degree to which district

attorneys and public defenders were cooperating appeared

to vary both within and across counties. For example,

stakeholders in a few counties reported that gaining buy-in

from the district attorney’s staff had been a struggle or

continued to be a problem. As one district attorney put it,

‘Old habits die hard.’ In contrast, the prosecutor and the

defense counsel in other counties were working together to

enable defendants to plead into SACPA at arraignment.

According to participants in the counties, this strategy

required that SACPA cases be handled by assistant-level

prosecutors and public defenders, that is, those with

decision-making power.

For some public defenders, the shift presented new

challenges; they now felt compelled to strike a balance

between defending their clients’ rights and collaborating

with prosecutors to secure treatment and other services for

their clients. One public defender articulated the issues:

“The shift from punishment to treatment that Proposition 36

represents has presented an interesting challenge for me .since I am .a defense lawyer first and someone who is

working in the Proposition 36 arena second. And I feel I

have to take that position because my clients are entitled to

no less, particularly if they don’t get to pick their own

lawyer.There is, I think, an ongoing tension between my

desire to do that and the desire of the court to assist them

more broadly to provide treatment.. The trick for me is to

maintain . an adequate level of collaboration while .feeling that I am not compromising my clients’ legal

representation in a more traditional sense.”

9 Case managers also linked clients to vocational, ancillary, and

psychological/psychiatric services in addition to serving as liaison between

the court and treatment.

5.3.3. Interagency assessment teams

Stakeholders responsible for planning and implementing

SACPA had anticipated needing to establish client

assessment procedures that promote interagency communi-

cation and collaboration. They were also aware that a

significant number of clients might not show up to

assessment centers after being referred by the court.

The need for collaborative assessment procedures and the

problem of ‘no shows’ became apparent during the

beginning stages of implementation. Stakeholders in

many counties responded by establishing centralized or

regional assessment centers, typically staffed by a team

composed of assessors from treatment and probation.

Stakeholders attempted to locate these assessment centers

as near as possible to the court.

Mental health staff was included on the assessment team

in one county, while in another, case managers had integral

roles. The county utilizing a treatment-probation-mental

health team regularly screened clients for mental health

problems and motivation for treatment. Also, the local parole

agent supervising SACPA parolees had recently moved to

the assessment location. In the county with a treatment-

probation-case manager team, case managers engaged

clients in treatment early through orientation and ‘pre-

treatment classes’ in an effort to counteract the negative

effects of waiting lists, which had to be established for nearly

all services because of the volume of SACPA cases.9 A

supervisor described the benefits of co-located assessment:

“It’s very clear that we’re of different cultures, but I think by

living together, so to speak, we learn each other’s cultures

and we learn to respect them and take advantage of each

other’s expertise in certain areas.”

Although many participants felt that these strategies

alleviated the problem of ‘no shows’ somewhat, they also

identified some ongoing problems with assessment and

suggested possible remedies. For example, participants

from one county believed that they could move offenders

into treatment more quickly if funds were available to hire

more assessors and thereby accommodate all walk-in

clients. In another county, staff wanted to pare down

the assessment instruments and experiment with group

assessment to reduce the lag between court referral,

assessment, and placement.

5.3.4. Monitoring and reporting

After SACPA began, probation staff in many counties

saw caseloads increase dramatically. They felt that the

number of offenders was ‘overwhelming’ and were not able

to provide the client monitoring and casework necessary to

be maximally effective. In response, stakeholders devised

procedures to distribute the tasks associated with

monitoring clients. For example, in most counties, lines of

communication between probation and treatment were

opened, and probation officers came to depend on client

information provided by treatment. In one county,

participants reported that after some problems were

resolved between treatment and probation staff in defining

‘doing well’ versus ‘violated,’ their system began to

function well. Also, probation had recently secured funding

(from a non-profit association) to experiment with using

interns to check on high-risk clients weekly. The recovery

community in another county began to develop a volunteer

mentor program that matched a person in recovery with a

SACPA client to ‘bridge the gap’ in oversight and support.

In a third county, the court decided to give the treatment-

probation team ‘great discretion’ to handle violations, so

that when a petition was brought to court, it was usually


sanctionable. The two-fold goal underlying this decision

was to give treatment time to work while also holding

clients accountable. Finally, participants from a fourth

county, who established a dedicated court to handle SACPA

offenders, found that it was instrumental in monitoring

offenders more effectively and in applying SACPA

procedures consistently.

5.3.5. Service delivery

Participants in all counties reported grappling with

service delivery problems. They suggested that the scarcity

of resources was leading to a considerable amount of

innovation and provided examples of the strategies being

employed to address particular needs.10

Co-occurring disorder. Participants identified the need to

serve offenders with co-occurring disorder more effectively.

Many participants favored collaborating more closely with

county mental health agencies. A participant from one county

noted that administrators from mental health, who had recently

joined the SACPA implementation committee, had volun-

teered funds to serve SACPA offenders. Another county was

developing a dual-diagnosis certification program for counse-

lors at a local community college. Other counties were

utilizing or planning to develop mental health courts.

Waiting lists. Implementation team members in one

county diverted funds from lower to higher levels of

treatment to create a new intensive outpatient program and

thus to compensate for a lack of residential beds. In

addition, case managers engaged clients early in treatment

through orientation and ‘pre-treatment classes’ in an effort

to counteract the negative effects of waiting lists.

Sober living. With the exception of one county, which

had a highly developed network of sober living environ-

ments, participants raised the need for more such environ-

ments. Although SACPA allows for 6 months of aftercare,

the statute stipulates that treatment must be from ‘a licensed

and/or certified community drug treatment program’

(California State Department, 2000). As a result, SACPA

offenders can be placed only in sober living houses operated

by licensed and/or certified treatment facilities. Because this

was not a common arrangement, very few options were

available in many counties.

Ancillary services. The need for ancillary services

(e.g. transportation, childcare, literacy classes, and job

training) led to new partnerships and staff positions in some

counties. One county forged a partnership with the local

community college to provide general equivalency diploma

(GED) credentials. Another county brought a family

intervention specialist on board to develop a family-based,

10 The service delivery problems identified here were either discussed in a

majority of counties or were raised in counties serving large proportions of

SACPA’s population statewide. We have not indicated which condition

applies in order to avoid identifying individual counties. We do, however,

indicate the number of counties in which a particular palliative strategy was

discussed.

rather than an individual-based, approach to SACPA clients.

This specialist facilitated contact between clients and their

families and linked families to services (e.g. perinatal

services, supplies and services for newborns, recreational

programs for children). In another county, case managers

were helping clients obtain vocational, ancillary, and

psychological/psychiatric services.

Language barriers. According to some participants, no

certified treatment providers employed counselors able to

speak the languages of some non-English speaking SACPA

clients. One county had recently released a Request for

Proposals to attract additional licensed/certified Spanish

language treatment providers.

Unmotivated clients. One county planned to meet the

perceived challenge of serving large numbers of

unmotivated clients by assessing motivation for treatment

and developing pre-treatment care for unmotivated clients.

Treatment providers in this county were experimenting with

motivational interviewing as well.

Case management. Because many SACPA clients had

multiple needs and the statute mandated that a variety of

distinct agencies provide services, many participants

identified the need for case managers who could act as

liaisons between the court and treatment. In two counties,

public defenders reported playing a ‘social worker’ role

(e.g. correcting clients’ misconception that there are no

consequences to noncompliance, seeking services for

clients, communicating with assessment staff, and following

up to ensure that clients are assessed and enter treatment).

In four counties, the treatment-probation and/or treatment-

parole teams appeared to perform this role, while in a fifth

county a newly hired SACPA court monitor had recently

been named ‘court monitor/case manager.’ Finally, in

one county case managers were included in SACPA from

the outset.

5.4. Street-level bureaucratic behavior

5.4.1. Resources

Winter notes that ‘one fairly universal problem’ among

street-level bureaucrats is the perception that resources are

‘chronically and seriously insufficient to meet the demands

placed on them’ (1990, p. 31; see also Weatherly & Lipsky,

1977). Although participants were pleased that SACPA

resulted in more money for treatment, many also warned

that the program was ‘woefully’ under-funded. Some

identified inadequate funding as the most significant barrier

to implementation. Limited funding led to skirmishes within

and across counties, with at least one focus group reporting

some resultant mistrust among stakeholder agencies. More-

over, while stakeholders from a few counties said that

funding was limited but currently adequate, they were

concerned about the levels of future funding prompted by

the state budget crisis and the flow into SACPA

of increasing numbers of clients with multiple and

complex needs.


According to Lin (2000) and Lipsky (1980) , scarcity of

resources and service delivery problems often frustrate

street-level bureaucrats and undermine buy-in among them.

A parole agent conveyed this frustration vividly when

describing how the unavailability of shelter space can send a

parolee into a tailspin:

“We take [parolees] to the shelters and they turn them

away.or they make . so many hoops for them to go

through that an agent can spend hours trying to get them

into the shelter and then they call and complain because

[a parolee] came to the shelter. And when you have

somebody that is a drug user and now you have no resources

for them and they’re on the streets, or you can get them

maybe a room for a week, and at the end of the week they

haven’t gotten on general assistance or they haven’t gotten a

job-or if they do have a job, they can’t pay for the rent, they

immediately turn to using the drugs, and now we’ve got a

positive test. And, no place to live, and now . we can’t

contact them. Now they’re an absconder and there’s a

warrant for their arrest. We arrest them and then they’re

back in prison, and then we start over again.”

5.4.2. Workload and burnout

Participants in all focus groups, particularly stakeholders

from probation, court administration, public defender’s

offices, and information technology, reported workload

increases due to SACPA. For example, probation caseloads

were as high as 1 officer to 500 felony clients. One

participant voiced a common misgiving that services would

need to be ‘watered down’ as caseloads increased:

“The pressures are phenomenal. I’ve talked to court officers

in this county who feel that we’ll have to eliminate court

reviews entirely .and I don’t think that conforms with

anything that any of us want to do. But it’s a pressure that’s

being driven by the numbers.”

Developing and maintaining collaborative relationships

to handle the influx of SACPA offenders was time-

consuming and, in some cases, laborious. Moreover,

development of a new or revamped infrastructure for

automated data management contributed to the workload,

as staff had to deal with the added tasks of learning a new

system or contending with dual record keeping and reporting

requirements. For those counties or agencies without

automated information systems, the ‘totally paper driven’

monitoring and reporting process was very time-consuming.

Given the increased workloads reported across the counties

as well as a number of other factors that caused staff ‘a whole

lot of stress,’ participants said that staff burnout was a serious

concern. As a probation supervisor put it,

“The amount of work that probation officers have to do is

just overwhelming. We’re adding people to the unit and

still they just work so hard and they just can’t keep up

with it.”

6. Conclusion

California’s voter-initiated Prop 36, enacted into law as

the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (SACPA),

mandated a large-scale, complex criminal justice policy

shift. Assessments of SACPA are likely to influence

ongoing criminal justice and treatment policy debates.

Adapting an analytic framework developed by Winter

(1990), we examined four interrelated sociopolitical

processes affecting implementation of SACPA in 10

counties during its first year: policy interpretation, target

group behavior, agency and interagency implementation

practices, and street-level bureaucratic behavior. While

Winter emphasizes the central role of policy formation, we

found that the interpretation of policy was especially salient

for counties’ SACPA implementation committees. Despite

the considerable time required to interpret and reach

agreement on requirements and procedures, participants

reported that local control was essential to their success. In

addition, counties’ drug court experiences reportedly played

a major role in devising local practices.

For the most part, participants reported benefiting from

increased interagency collaboration, especially as they

contended with larger than anticipated numbers of clients

with multiple and complex needs. Demonstrating

respect for all stakeholders’ expertise and roles was deemed

a necessary prerequisite to collaboration. In addition,

co-location of treatment and criminal justice staff was

reportedly fostering understanding across agencies.

Establishing a system for regular and timely communi-

cation, clearly defining roles, and developing a unifying

philosophy were also identified as key ingredients to

successful collaboration. Many participants conveyed

that they were still in the midst of resolving some issues

(e.g. workload increases, insufficient funds for the services

SACPA clients require). Among staff who dealt directly

with clients, or ‘street-level bureaucrats,’ concern over lack

of needed services and resources was pronounced.

Staff workload and burnout were also concerns across

several of the agencies involved in implementation,

including probation, public defender’s offices, and

information technology departments. Flexible approaches

to problem-solving were vital to sustaining stakeholders’

morale and momentum. In short, stakeholders appeared, on

balance, to have experienced notable success in navigating

the sociopolitical problems that might have undermined

implementation.

Successful innovation is associated with stakeholders’

willingness to adopt new values, roles, and terminology

(Hage, 1989) and articulate common goals (Prendergast &

Burdon, 2002). In addition, the importance of collaboration


and communication among the primary stakeholders in

delivering treatment is repeatedly stressed (Center for

Substance Abuse Treatment, 1994, 1995; Greenwood,

1995; Taxman, 1998). Musheno et al. (1989) identify

critical conditions that facilitate organizational innovation

in criminal justice, including the importance of having

access to the decision-making process; adaptation of policy

and procedures to local conditions, and supportive organ-

izational dynamics. Focus group participants reported

working to achieve these conditions.

7. Evaluation lessons learned

Because participants were not randomly selected, we

cannot be sure that our findings reflect the views of all

SACPA stakeholders. Thus, generalizing these findings to

all stakeholders within any given county or across the state’s

58 counties may be inappropriate. Moreover, since

most participants knew one another and worked together

on a regular basis, some may not have felt free to answer

questions candidly. In addition, the ideal number of

participants for a focus group is 8 to 10 (Frey & Fontana,

1993), allowing for in-depth discussion with ample

opportunity for all to participate. We sought to limit our

focus groups to 12 participants, but in many cases the

groups were unavoidably larger. Furthermore, in some

sessions, the time allotted for the discussion was limited in

order to accommodate the schedules of court personnel.

Under these circumstances, participants may not have had

the time or have felt free to discuss fully the topics raised.

In our review of preliminary findings with participants

(see above), inability to demonstrate representativeness in a

formal way undermined credibility with a few participants,

who seized upon this limitation as a basis for challenging

findings that they did not like. Specifically, some stake-

holders argued that ‘minority’ opinions should be excluded.

We, of course, could not comply, given that the value of the

focus-group method derives from its ability to gather a broad

range of reactions to particular circumstances or interven-

tions (Sheldin & Schreiber, 1995) and to reveal possible

reasons for the success or failure of particular programs in

specific settings (Morgan & Krueger, 1993). While most

participants attested to the veracity of findings and accepted

the focus-group method, some stakeholders continue to

question the validity of focus groups and other qualitative

methods in the evaluation. A more rigorous procedure for

sampling both counties and participants might have

improved the substantive and political value of findings.

Nevertheless, because these findings stem from the

perceptions and experiences of a range of knowledgeable

stakeholders engaged in day-to-day implementation, they

can help to inform the ongoing operation of SACPA as well

as similar initiatives in other states. Our model-driven

approach brought rigor to the qualitative analysis and will

guide us in our ongoing examination of implementation.

Finally, the ultimate success of SACPA depends on

continued quality of implementation and will be seen

most clearly in analyses of SACPA’s costs and effects on

client outcomes.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the members of the Substance

Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (SACPA) implementation

committees in the 10 focus counties (Alameda, Kern, Los

Angeles, Mendocino, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa

Barbara, Santa Clara, Shasta, and Ventura) for participating

in the focus groups. The focus groups are part of an

independent evaluation of SACPA’s implementation, fiscal

impact, and effectiveness mandated in the initiative.

The State of California, Health and Human Services

Agency, Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs

(ADP) was designated by the Governor’s Office to serve

as the lead agency in implementing and evaluating SACPA.

In turn, ADP chose UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse

Programs to conduct the independent evaluation.

The opinions, findings, and conclusions in the article are

the authors and not necessarily those of ADP.

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