Response: A Sensible Division of Labor

Douglas McDonald: There are three basic ways that criminal justice agencies and drug treatment programs can interact: (1) justice agency employees conduct screening and assessment and refer patients to independ­ ent organizations for treatment; (2) a jus­ tice agency contracts with a treatment organ­ ization to screen, assess, place, and treat patients; and (3) a justice agency engages an intermediary like Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC) of Illinois to screen and assess offenders and to refer them to independent treatment programs. The problem with the first model is that assess­ ing drug treatment needs is not the strength of the criminal justice system. The problem with the second is that there are very few programs with the resources to provide the complete range of services across a contin­ uum of care. The third option, using an intermediary agency, strikes me as the best. The advantages and disadvantages of such choices in “make or buy” decisions have been much studied in the business litera­ ture on contracting, privatization, and out­ sourcing. The issue is whether the costs and benefits of making a product or delivering a service directly are more advantageous than purchasing the product or contracting the service out to another firm. In general, it makes sense to contract with another provider to deliver services that are ancillary to your organization’s primary mission. For exam­ ple, schools often hire an outside business to operate their cafeterias, because food serv­ ice is peripheral to their core mission of edu­ cation. Rather than having school princi­ pals become experts in food service, it is more efficient to hand the task to an organ­ ization that focuses its resources and atten­ tion on that service. The core business of the criminal justice system is enforcing laws, processing defendants and offenders, and delivering justice. Drug and alcohol treat­ ment services for offenders who abuse sub­ stances may be important and effective in reducing recidivism, but these services are of secondary importance to criminal justice agencies’ missions. This makes them good candidates for outsourcing.