A Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Kings County District Attorney's Office Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison (DTAP) Program

In October 1990, the Kings County (Brooklyn, NY) District Attorney's Office implemented the Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison (DTAP) program to divert nonviolent felony drug offenders from prison to community-based residential drug treatment. This article presents an estimate of the costs and benefits of the DTAP program based on a cohort of DTAP participants and prison comparisons who entered treatment or prison in 1995–1996 and were tracked for 6 years. The analysis focuses on the criminal justice system (CJS) costs associated with criminal recidivism. Findings show that the DTAP program is cost-beneficial compared to the usual criminal justice process (benefit-cost ratio equals 2.17 after 6 years).