On Good Authority

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A comparison of local and
multi-jurisdictional drug
enforcement efforts in Illinois
On Good Authority
Vol. 6, No. 6
February 2003
On Good Authority is a periodic
briefing on trends and issues in
criminal justice program evaluation.
This report is a summary of research
conducted by Gerard F. Ramker, Ph.D.,
and Robert Bauer, of the Illinois
Criminal Justice Information Authority,
and David E. Olson, Ph.D., Stephanie
Albertson, Jennifer Brees, Andrew
Cobb, Lisa Feliciano, and Rebecca
Juergens, of Loyola University Chicago.
Copies of the report are available
from the Authority’s Research and
Analysis Unit.
The Illinois Criminal Justice
Information Authority is a state
agency dedicated to improving the
administration of criminal justice in
Illinois. The basic functions of the
Authority are criminal justice research,
federal and state grants administration,
and information systems development
and support.
For more information, or for copies of
this or other publications, contact the
Authority at (312) 793-8550, or visit
our website at www.icjia.state.il.us.
The evaluation was supported by grant #99-
DD-BX-0028 awarded by the Bureau of
Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs,
U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view in
this document do not necessarily represent the
official position or policies of the U.S.
Department of Justice.
Printed by authority of the State of Illinois,
February 2003. Printing order #03-150;
6,500 copies.
Rod R. Blagojevich
Governor
Candice M. Kane
Executive Director
ILLINOIS
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
INFORMATION AUTHORITY
Multi-jurisdictional drug task
forces and metropolitan
enforcement groups (MEGs)
were formed in the early 1970s to fill the
void in drug enforcement efforts between
local police departments and federal
agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement
Administration and Federal Bureau of
Investigation. These groups have grown
dramatically in number and coverage area
since the mid-1980s with federal funds
administered by the Authority.
Today, there are 21 multi-jurisdic-tional
drug task forces operating in
Illinois. To date, little research has been
conducted nationally to assess the
degree to which the units target different
types of drug law violators.
Through a grant from the U.S.
Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice
Assistance, researchers from the Author-ity
and Loyola University Chicago’s
Criminal Justice Department developed
and tested a methodology for comparing
multi-jurisdictional drug unit efforts to
those of local police departments. This
On Good Authority summarizes the
findings of this research project.
Throughout this summary, refer-ence
to “multi-jurisdictional drug task
forces” includes both drug task forces
and MEGs.
Methods
To examine in detail the characteristics
and case outcomes of multi-jurisdictional
drug unit arrestees and compare them to
those drug law violators arrested by local
police departments, researchers identified
five multi-jurisdictional drug units to
serve as the sample. These units included
both MEGs and task forces, and served
urban and rural jurisdictions. The units
provided names, race, gender, date of
birth, and other identifiers of individuals
they arrested in 1998. With this informa-tion,
criminal history records (rap sheets)
were generated by the Illinois State Police
(ISP) and coded to summarize each
arrestee’s criminal history, characteristics,
and outcome of arrest.
Criminal history records for a sample
of 1998 drug law arrestees from local
police departments within the regions
covered by multi-jurisdictional drug task
forces also were generated and coded.
Arrestees were included from depart-ments
that participated in the multi-jurisdictional
drug unit through the
assignment of officers or other contribu-tions,
as well as departments that did not
participate.
Through analyses of these data,
researchers sought to answer these
questions:
1) Are there any differences between
multi-jurisdictional drug units and local
police departments in the nature of drug
arrests made?
2) Are there any differences between
multi-jurisdictional drug units and local
police departments in the outcomes of the
arrests in terms of acceptance for