The Drug Offender Reform Act program

The Drug Offender Reform Act, commonly referred to by its acronym DORA, was created by the Utah Legislature. It provides funding for use by the Utah Department of Corrections and other entities statewide to offer expedited treatment to qualified offenders. Currently, participants must be offenders who are on probation.

The goal of the program is to shorten the time from conviction to beginning treatment for eligible offenders with a history of substance abuse and thus decrease the risk of relapse and reduce the rate of recidivism.

Some rules for qualifying include:

• Offender must take two assessments, one for treatment appropriateness and one for risk evaluation

• Participants are ideally identified during the Pre-Sentence Investigation stage and may be referred to the program by a judge

• Offenders should be within 90 days of probation supervision to apply for DORA

The program uses a collaborative approach, with a team that includes the offender, the substance abuse treatment provider and the AP&P DORA agent.

The Department offers the program currently in four counties: Weber, Davis, Salt Lake and Utah. There are 10 probation agents and one supervisor funded under DORA. There are approximately 520 probationers being supervised by these AP&P agents under the DORA program at any given time.