This study conducts a cost-benefit analysis of Dallas County's drug court system, concluding that every dollar spent moving people from traditional adjudication to the drug court would save $9.43.   

From the report:

This is a follow-up study of the DIVERT Court recidivism study of August, 2001 written by Ms. Monica Turley and Ms. Ashley Sibley of the Psychology Department of Southern Methodist University in August 2001 entitled "Presentation of Outcome Evaluation Findings DIVERT Advisory Board." Their study examined the recidivism behavior of 178 Divert Court participants and 78 Control Group participants over a twenty-seven month follow-up period. They found a statistically significant reduction in recidivism arising from participation in the DIVERT Court program.

This study analyzes a cost-benefit ledger based on the event histories of the participants in the Turley/Sibley recidivism study. The ledger is based on 15 months of "treatment" costs for each participant and, after treatment, the savings to society from reduced recidivism arising from DIVERT Court treatment.

This study finds the Benefit-Cost ratio associated with the DIVERT Court program over a 40 month follow-up period to be 9.43:1. That is, on average, for every dollar spent on upgrading drug treatment from the Control group (traditional adjudication) to drug treatment through DIVERT Court, $9.43 of costs can be saved by society over a 40 month post-treatment period. Even though this Benefit-Cost ratio is quite substantial, it is still a conservative estimate of the benefits forthcoming from the DIVERT Court program for reasons detailed in the report.

Full Report: DIVERT Court of Dallas County Cost Benefit Analysis (PDF | 359KB)

Fomby, T. B., & Rangaprasad, V. (2002). DIVERT court of Dallas County cost benefit analysis. Department of Economics, Southern Methodist University