Summary: Buncombe County Commissioners will consider accepting a $1 million federal grant to strengthen the County’s three treatment courts, expanding treatment, transitional housing, transportation, and other supports while improving data collection and evaluation. We support the grant. However, because national treatment court research has found racial disparities in who gets referred, admitted, and successfully completes these programs, we also encourage the County to use its expanded evaluation capacity to examine and publicly report whether those disparities exist here.

The Facts: Buncombe County Justice Services has received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, covering October 2026 through September 2030. Commissioners are being asked Thursday to accept the grant and approve the corresponding budget amendment.

The money will support three existing programs: Adult Drug Treatment Court, ASPIRE Court for people with repeat impaired-driving convictions and substance-use disorders, and Veterans Treatment Court. Rather than relying solely on incarceration or conventional probation, treatment courts combine judicial supervision with substance-use treatment, case management, drug testing and recovery supports. Buncombe’s grant will: continue an in-house clinician providing individualized treatment and assessment-driven case plans; expand transitional housing and transportation assistance; strengthen drug-testing capacity; provide staff training; improve data collection, monitoring and referral tracking; and expand program evaluation, with support from American University.

The County expects the investment to increase treatment participation and successful completion while reducing substance use and recidivism. You can read more about the grant here.

Our Assessment: Treatment courts can offer people struggling with substance-use disorders an important alternative to a criminal-justice system built primarily around punishment. Housing, transportation, individualized treatment, and other practical supports can also address some of the barriers that make sustained recovery difficult. For all of these reasons: we strongly support accepting this grant and strengthening these services.

But access to an alternative is equitable only if similarly situated people have a similar opportunity to receive and successfully complete it. National research gives reason to examine that question carefully. The Adult Treatment Court Best Practice Standards (most recently updated in 2023) reports disparities at multiple stages of the process: Black defendants have been less likely to be referred or admitted to treatment courts in some studies and a large multi-court study found lower successful-completion rates among Black participants than white participants. The standards therefore call on treatment courts to monitor their operations at least annually for racial, ethnic, and other disparities and address disparities they identify. (You can read more in this All Rise Adult Treatment Court Best Practice Standard report – see page 36 for the research on disparities, and page 38 for the suggested monitoring practices.)

This also connects to a broader accountability issue Buncombe County has already identified. The City/County Cease the Harm audit, completed in 2024, identified inconsistent collection of racial demographic data across City and County programs as one of its four major findings. The audit warned that these gaps make it difficult to assess who benefits from government programs and whether they are producing equitable outcomes.

The new grant creates an opportunity to address that broader concern within Buncombe County’s treatment courts. It explicitly supports better data collection, monitoring, and evaluation. The County should use that capacity to examine the treatment court pathway from beginning to end: Who is referred? Who is found eligible? Who is admitted? Who receives sanctions or additional support? Who completes the program? Who is terminated, and why? The County should examine each stage by race and ethnicity, identify any significant disparities, and publicly report aggregate findings and corrective actions while protecting participants’ privacy.

Buncombe County already describes addressing racial and ethnic disparities as one of the priorities of its Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. But we have not found current public reporting showing whether referrals, admissions, completion, and termination from the County’s treatment courts differ by race or ethnicity.

We are not assuming that inequities exist in Buncombe County’s treatment courts. But national research gives us good reason to ask whether they do. If the data reveal no significant disparities, that would be reassuring. If disparities emerge, the County and its court partners should investigate where they arise and what changes could address them. That is what meaningful evaluation and continuous improvement should accomplish.

Things to do: Email County Commissioners and ask them to accept the Treatment Court Enhancement Grant while ensuring that the expanded evaluation tracks and publicly reports racial and ethnic disparities in access, participation, and outcomes.

Email Template: You can send an email to the Buncombe County Commission by filling out the form below. Our email tool will send an individually addressed email to the recipients, and enable us to track how many emails were sent overall in the campaign. If you prefer to write your own email, you can copy and paste (and adapt) our template text – please cc: or bcc: info@gapavl.org on your individualized email, so we can better track how many emails were sent. 

Important: If you receive a response to your email, please forward it to us at info@gapavl.org so we can reflect that in the report back.

To: alfred.whitesides@buncombecounty.org, amanda.edwards@buncombecounty.org, drew.ball@buncombecounty.org, jennifer.horton@buncombecounty.org, martin.moore@buncombecounty.org, parker.sloan@buncombecounty.org, terri.wells@buncombecounty.org

CC: or BCC: info@gapavl.org

Subject: Use the Treatment Court grant to strengthen recovery and equity

Dear Chair Edwards and County Commissioners,

I encourage you to accept the $1 million Treatment Court Enhancement Grant and use this opportunity to strengthen both recovery services and accountability.

The proposed expansion of treatment, transitional housing, transportation, and other supports could make a meaningful difference for people struggling with substance-use disorders. I particularly appreciate that the grant will also improve data collection, monitoring, and program evaluation.

National treatment court research has found racial disparities in referral, admission, and successful completion in some programs, and current best-practice standards recommend that treatment courts examine their own results for such disparities.

Please ensure that Buncombe County uses its expanded evaluation capacity to examine the treatment court process by race and ethnicity, including referrals, eligibility and admission, successful completion, and termination. Aggregate results should be reported publicly while protecting participants’ privacy.

This does not require assuming that inequities exist in Buncombe County’s programs. It means examining whether everyone who could benefit from treatment court has a fair opportunity to enter and succeed, and taking corrective action if the data reveal disparities.

Thank you for supporting treatment and recovery while also building the accountability needed to make these programs as effective and equitable as possible.

[Name]
[Address or neighborhood, if desired]