ADAM II Sample Characteristics
2. The ADAM II Sample
The ADAM II samples consist of all adult males 18 years and older who have been arrested and booked on any charge within the prior 48 hours. Persons who are given a citation or released with a desk
appearance ticket are not included in the sample. However, all persons who are arrested and booked on all misdemeanor or felony charges are included. The exception is Chicago (Cook County) where the sample consists of felony and serious misdemeanor arrests only. Persons who have already been adjudicated and are only being transferred from one facility to another, for example, immigration violators being held for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and persons being held for either military or federal law enforcement, are not included. In addition, arrestees who are incoherent or deemed by local authorities as too violent at the time of the interview are excluded. All have been booked and are, in general, waiting to be taken before a magistrate. In some facilities, this process takes several hours and arrestees remain in the active booking area during that time.
The ADAM II data collection has three components: the facesheet on which official records data are collected on all arrestees sampled, regardless of obtaining a subsequent interview; the interview, covering a range of topics; and the urine sample and test result (see Exhibit 2.1).
Exhibit 2.1: ADAM II Data Domains
Official Records Data (Facesheet)
Arrest date, time, precinct, arresting agency
Arrestee birthdate, race/ethnicity, address (zip code), three most serious charges, location of arrest Booking date and time
Interview Domains
Demographics: age, race/ethnicity, education, employment, insurance, marital status Residency (current and prior 12 months)
Drug, alcohol, and mental health treatment experience (lifetime, prior 12 months) Arrest, incarceration history (lifetime, prior 12 months)
Alcohol use (five or more drinks at one time) Prior 3,7,30 days use
Prior 12 months use by month
Drug use: Marijuana, crack, powder cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, other specified drugs Lifetime use, age at first use
Prior 3, 7, 30 days use
Prior 12 months use by month (number of days using in each) Method of drug ingestion at last use
Secondary drug use: List of other drugs Use in the prior three days
Dependence and abuse screener: drugs, alcohol Drug market activity
Unit purchased, method of purchase, frequency in prior 30 days, circumstances of acquisition
Urine Test for 10 Drugs
Marijuana, opiates, cocaine metabolites, amphetamines/methamphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, methadone, oxycodone, phencyclidine, buprenorphine
Demographic Characteristics of ADAM II Arrestees
The demographic characteristics of ADAM II arrestees from 2007 to 2013 are presented in Tables 2.1 through 2.3 in Appendix A. The average age of arrestees in all five sites ranged from 34 to 38, which reflected a significantly older arrestee population than in prior years in all sites except Denver, where the average age of arrestees has remained stable at between 34 and 35 years old (Table 2.1). Over 60 percent of arrestees across all sites in 2013 were single. The proportion of ADAM II male arrestees who were U.S. citizens was close to 90 percent or higher in all five sites, ranging from 88 percent (Atlanta and New York) to 98 percent (Chicago), although these figures do not include any arrestee held for immigration authorities.
High unemployment characterizes this population. Four of the five sites showed a significant (10 percent or more) decrease since 2007 in the proportion of male booked arrestees who reported currently working either full or part time; current unemployment levels in these sites ranged from 52 percent (New York) to 69 percent (Sacramento). The exception was Chicago, where unemployment levels among arrestees have dropped significantly since 2010 to 43 percent (Table 2.1). Educational levels across the sites have remained relatively stable since 2007, ranging roughly between 60 and 70 percent of arrestees across all sites reporting that they had either completed high school or obtained a GED (Table 2.2).
In 2013, ADAM II asked arrestees if they had ever been on active duty in the U.S. military (Tables D.1 in Appendix D). Across all sites, less than 10 percent of arrestees reported ever being on active duty in the U.S. military, ranging from 4 percent in New York to 9 percent in Atlanta. Among those arrestees who were veterans, between a third and a little more than a half had been deployed to a combat zone and most (58 percent or more across all sites) reported being currently separated or retired from the military. With the exception of New York, where more than half of the arrestees had some form of health insurance (individually purchased, employer or union funded, state government funded, or federally funded [e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration]), the proportion of uninsured ADAM II arrestees in the remaining four sites in 2013 ranged between 65 percent (Sacramento) and 73 percent (Chicago) (Table 2.2).
ADAM II arrestees are also asked to report on where they have lived for the past year, e.g., their own house, someone else’s house, dormitory or group home, residential treatment facility, prison or jail, or no fixed residence. The proportion of arrestees that reported having stable housing in the prior 30 days was between 70 percent (Denver) and 94 percent (Chicago), but these levels represented a significant decline since prior years in four of the five sites (Table 2.2). Arrestees are also asked about their housing situation by month over the past 12 months, which provides an indicator of the longer term stability of their
housing situation. Among all ADAM II arrestees, 17 percent changed residences three or more times in that period; 11 percent reported having been homeless during the prior 30 days.
While the racial and ethnic makeup of the adult male arrestee population has remained relatively stable in Atlanta and Sacramento, the remaining three sites show shifts in the makeup of the ADAM II population since 2007 and 2008, which may reflect demographic shifts in the region. In Chicago, the percentage of African-American arrestees has decreased significantly since 2007, while the percentage of Hispanic and white, non-Hispanic arrestees has increased significantly. In Denver, the percentage of Hispanic arrestees has declined significantly and the percentage of white, non-Hispanic arrestees has increased significantly. And in New York, the percentage of Hispanic and Black arrestees has increased significantly, while the percentage of white and other non-Hispanic arrestees has decreased significantly (Table 2.3).
Arrestees’ Histories of Involvement with the Criminal Justice System
Most ADAM II arrestees are not new to the criminal justice system. Arrestees are asked to report the number of times they have been arrested prior to the current arrest, including within the past year. In 2013, ADAM II arrestees also were asked if they had been on probation, on parole or other supervised or conditional release from prison at any time during the past 12 months.
Across all sites, more than 80 percent of the arrestees reported that they have been arrested at least once prior to the current arrest, ranging from 82 percent (Sacramento) to 94 percent (Chicago). For all but Sacramento, these levels reflect a significant increase since 2003 in the proportion of arrestees with an arrest history (Table 2.4). Many have also been recently arrested prior to the current arrest; between 14 percent (Denver) and 29 percent (Atlanta) of arrestees reported being arrested two or more times in the year prior to the current arrest. This represented a significant increase in the number of recent repeat offenders in all but Denver since the 2000–2003 years of ADAM (Table 2.5).
In 2013, it was not uncommon for arrestees to have been on probation or parole in the 12 months prior to their arrest (Table D.2). More arrestees in Sacramento reported being on probation (52 percent) or parole (25 percent) than in any of the other five sites, where the percentage of arrestees on probation in the previous 12 months ranged from 7 percent (New York) to 32 percent (Atlanta) and the percentage on parole ranged from 3 percent (Atlanta) to 23 percent (Denver) (Table D.2).
All adult male arrestees, regardless of charge, are eligible to be included in the ADAM II samples. Charge information is recorded for the three highest charges for which the adult male arrestee was booked. Table 2.6 presents the percentage of arrestees booked for each type of charge: violent, drug, property, or other crimes. Less than a quarter of arrestees were charged with a violent crime in all five ADAM II sites, ranging from 18 percent (Atlanta) to 24 percent (Chicago and Denver). There were significantly fewer adult male arrestees charged with a violent crime since 2007 in New York and since 2012 in Sacramento, while the percentage of arrestees charged with a violent crime remained stable in the other sites.
There have been significant changes since prior years in the percentage of arrestees charged with drug crimes in all five sites (Table 2.6). While the percentage of arrestees charged with drug crimes
significantly increased by 5 to 10 percent since 2007 in New York and Sacramento and to a lesser extent in Atlanta since 2011, the percentage of arrestees charged with a drug crime has decreased significantly by more than 10 percent in Chicago and Denver since 2007. In three of the sites, close to a quarter or more of the arrestees were charged with a property crime, ranging from 24 percent (Atlanta) to 33 percent (New York). Since 2007, property crime charges continue to be less common in Denver and Sacramento, where the percentage of arrestees charged with property crimes has dropped significantly in both sites since 2007 to historic lows of 14 and 12 percent, respectively.
Differences Between Arrestees Who Tested Positive for Drugs and Those Who
Tested Negative
Arrestees who participate in ADAM II consent to both an interview and collection of bioassay data. While 82 percent of male arrestees who were sampled and available in the facility at the time of the interview in 2013 consented to both, 11 percent participated in the interview, but did not provide a urine specimen. In these cases, imputation methods were applied, which allow for comparisons to be made between arrestees who have drugs in their system at the time of arrest and those who do not. The results of the comparisons made for 2013 between these two adult male arrestee groups (users and nonusers) are
presented in Tables 2.7 and 2.8.This comparison does not distinguish which of the drugs ADAM II arrestees had in their systems. It is simply a comparison between those with any drug and those with no drugs in their systems.
Users in Atlanta were significantly younger than nonusers, fewer users in New York have a high school diploma or GED, and significantly more users in Denver, New York, and Sacramento were U.S. citizens. Significantly fewer users in Denver and Sacramento had access to health insurance over the past year and significantly fewer users were employed in four of the five sites. In Sacramento, nonusers were twice as likely to be employed as users. Only in Denver did users report significantly lower levels of stability with respect to housing over the past 30 days than nonusers. And, while arrest histories did not significantly differ between the two groups in three of the sites, users in Chicago and Sacramento were two to three times more likely to have been arrested prior to the current arrest than nonusers.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Treatment Experiences Among ADAM II
Arrestees
ADAM II asks arrestees, regardless of whether they admit to drug use, about their treatment experiences. Arrestees are asked about both lifetime and recent inpatient and outpatient drug or alcohol treatment and inpatient mental health treatment at a psychiatric facility. Tables 2.9 and 2.10 present findings across the five sites. It is also important to note that differences may be related to availability of treatment facilities and/or insurance options in each area, as well as to differences in the prevalence of drug use in each area. Less than 30 percent of all 2013 ADAM II arrestees reported ever receiving any form of drug or alcohol treatment. The percentage of 2013 ADAM II arrestees that reported having ever received outpatient drug or alcohol treatment ranged from 9 percent (Atlanta) to 26 percent (New York). For most sites, the proportion of ADAM II arrestees who had ever received outpatient treatment remained relatively stable, with the exception of Atlanta, where significantly fewer had outpatient treatment experience since 2009, and New York, where significantly more had outpatient treatment experience since 2007. The percentage of arrestees who reported ever receiving residential or inpatient drug or alcohol treatment ranged between 15 percent (Atlanta) and 29 percent (Denver). Atlanta and New York showed the same significant shifts in inpatient drug and alcohol treatment as seen with outpatient treatment experiences.
The proportion of adult male arrestees that reported receiving any form of treatment in the past year was low, less than 14 percent. Between 2 percent (Chicago) and 10 percent (New York) of arrestees reported receiving outpatient treatment services in the past year, three times fewer ADAM II arrestees in Chicago than received treatment in 2007 and significantly more than received outpatient treatment in New York in 2009 (Table 2.9). Reported levels of inpatient or residential drug or alcohol treatment in the past year were at slightly higher levels, ranging from 3 percent (Atlanta) to 14 percent (Denver).
Across all sites, arrestees reported receiving inpatient mental health treatment (Table 2.10) in the past year at lower levels than any form of drug or alcohol treatment, ranging from 2 percent (Denver) to 6 percent (Chicago). Significantly more 2013 ADAM II arrestees in Chicago and New York reported a recent inpatient psychiatric stay than did those in 2010, and the same was true for Sacramento since 2012.