Appendix 10
Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring
Methodology and survey sampling information
[ pdf version ]
Note: The following information was excerpted from U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 2000 Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring: Annual Report, NCJ 193013, pp. 3, 4, 9-15; Preliminary Data on Drug Use and Related Matters Among Adult Arrestees and Juvenile Detainees, 2002, p. 1 and Table 1; Drug and Alcohol Use and Related Matters Among Arrestees 2003, p. 3 and Table 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice); and information provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice. Non-substantive editorial adaptations have been made.
Methodology
The Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program measures the extent of drug and alcohol use and drug involvement among persons arrested and booked as adults in selected city and county detention facilities operated by local police and sheriffs' departments. The data are collected in booking facilities in participating city/county areas. The participating counties, i.e., ADAM sites, are selected according to a standard protocol involving numerous site requirements. For example, each ADAM site must provide access to all booking facilities in the jurisdiction so that every booked arrestee has some probability of being included in the sample. In addition, the site must provide case flow information for each booking facility so that a sampling plan can be established. Sites also must provide access to interview rooms that ensure confidentiality.
Data collection occurs at each ADAM site by trained civilian interview teams who are not law enforcement officials or booking facility staff. Arrestees are approached usually on the same day but always within 48 hours of their arrest and asked to participate in the study. The interviewers conduct personal interviews that are approximately 30 minutes in length. After the interview, each arrestee is asked to provide a urine sample, which is analyzed to detect drug use. The interviews and the urine specimens are kept anonymous and confidential, and all participation is voluntary. At most sites, more than 80% of the individuals approached agree to participate and, of those, more than 80% agree to provide urine specimens.
Data collection takes place four times a year at each site, once each calendar quarter. Data collection periods are generally two consecutive weeks each quarter. Data are collected from adult male and adult female arrestees. In the context of the ADAM study, "adult" refers to the facilities where the data are collected, not necessarily the age of the arrestee. Some arrestees who are less than 18 years of age are booked as adults because of the type of offense involved. Male and female arrestees may be booked in the same or in separate facilities, depending on the local jurisdiction. The adult male arrestees were selected through probability-based sampling and the data are weighted according to methods discussed below. However, female arrestees were selected through purposive sampling and the data are self-weighted. As a result, adult male and female data are not fully comparable within sites. Also, because the number of females arrested is much lower than the number of males, some ADAM sites do not interview female arrestees. Therefore, data for female arrestees are not shown in SOURCEBOOK.
Beginning with the 2000 data collection, a redesign of the ADAM program was fully implemented. A probability-based study design was adopted, catchment areas were redefined to make them uniform among the sites, and county-level and facility-level sampling plans were implemented to ensure that all arrestees have some probability of being included in the study.
ADAM sites typically are named for the largest city in the area. However, the catchment area has been broadened to encompass the entire county at all sites.
A sample of booking facilities is drawn at each site. The method varies depending on the number of booking facilities in a county. For counties having only one facility, all cases are drawn. Sites with two to five facilities are stratified by size and cases are sampled proportionate to the size of the facility. For sites having more than five, facilities are clustered by size and those in each cluster are sampled proportionate to size.
The method for selecting arrestees is uniform for all facilities. There is a target number of interviews to be completed each quarter at each site. A portion of arrestees are selected at the time of day when the volume of arrestees is high, others are randomly selected from arrests occurring during the rest of the 24-hour period, and arrestees who cannot be interviewed because they were released early are represented through statistical imputation.To ensure accurate weighting of cases to represent the entire arrestee population, data were collected on all arrests processed at each booking facility during the two-week interview period. The probability-based sampling of male arrestees and the application of weights result in statistically reliable estimates for the male arrestee population of the target counties.
The ADAM program uses EMIT (Enzyme Multiplied
Immunoassay Testing) to screen for the presence
of drugs in urine. EMIT tests have been
shown to be one of the most consistently
accurate drug testing methods, with greater
than 95% accuracy and specificity for most
drugs. Most urine specimens are collected
the day of arrest but all are collected
within 48 hours of arrest. Specimens are
removed daily from the ADAM site facilities.
The urine testing for ADAM focuses on the
"NIDA-5" drugs, which are cocaine,
marijuana, methamphetamine, opiates, and
phencyclidine (PCP). These five substances
comprise the panel of commonly used illegal
drugs identified by the National Institute
on Drug Abuse.
Primary city | County catchment/study area | Total interviews | Weighted number |
---|---|---|---|
Total | 22,666 | 180,455 | |
Albany, NY | Capital area | 450 | 2,799 |
Albuquerque, NM | Bernalillo County | 535 | 3,265 |
Anchorage, AK | Anchorage Borough | 322 | 943 |
Atlanta, GA | Fulton and DeKalb Counties | 869 | 8,169 |
Birmingham, AL | Jefferson County | 530 | 1,749 |
Boston, MA | Suffolk County | 111 | 452 |
Charlotte, NC | Charlotte-Metro | 599 | 3,754 |
Chicago, IL | Cook County | 930 | 28,672 |
Cleveland, OH | Cuyahoga County | 736 | 2,915 |
Dallas, TX | Dallas County | 1,497 | 8,960 |
Denver, CO | Denver County | 580 | 2,573 |
Des Moines, IA | Polk County | 430 | 914 |
Honolulu, HI | Oahu | 370 | 1,502 |
Houston, TX | Harris County | 87 | 1,894 |
Indianapolis, IN | Marion County | 498 | 6,842 |
Las Vegas, NV | Clark County | 981 | 5,347 |
Los Angeles, CA | Los Angeles | 349 | 957 |
Miami, FL | Miami-Dade County | 294 | 3,244 |
Minneapolis, MN | Hennepin County | 677 | 3,437 |
New Orleans, LA | Orleans Parish | 522 | 7,505 |
New York, NY | Manhattan | 730 | 10,529 |
Oklahoma City, OK | Oklahoma County | 582 | 2,926 |
Omaha, NE | Douglas County | 537 | 4,928 |
Philadelphia, PA | County of Philadelphia | 684 | 1,919 |
Phoenix, AZ | Maricopa County | 1,347 | 11,645 |
Portland, OR | Multnomah County | 564 | 2,703 |
Rio Arriba, NM | Rio Arriba County | 133 | 200 |
Sacramento, CA | Sacramento County | 540 | 5,223 |
Salt Lake City, UT | Salt Lake County | 631 | 2,844 |
San Antonio, TX | Bexar County | 611 | 8,778 |
San Diego, CA | San Diego County | 730 | 7,523 |
San Jose, CA | Santa Clara County | 715 | 4,599 |
Seattle, WA | King County | 731 | 4,758 |
Spokane, WA | Spokane County | 372 | 2,006 |
Tampa, FL | Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties | 801 | 6,310 |
Tucson, AZ | Pima County | 447 | 2,657 |
Tulsa, OK | Tulsa County | 695 | 3,664 |
Washington, DC | Washington, DC | 358 | 1,148 |
Woodbury, IA | Woodbury County | 91 | 202 |
Note: The number of sites participating in the ADAM program varies from year to year. |