research papers about drug courts

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Creating legitimacy in a diversion court testing the theoretical framework of procedural justice and therapeutic jurisprudence, life events and other stressors of diversion drug court participants: an exploratory analysis of race and gender differences, expert commentary, expert commentary social bonds in treatment courts: the secret to success, justice-involved women veterans: recommendations for gender-inclusivity in veteran treatment courts.

Procedural Due Process, Drug Courts, and Loss of Liberty Sanctions

14 New York University Journal of Law & Liberty 733 (2021)

U Denver Legal Studies Research Paper No. 21-03

48 Pages Posted: 26 Feb 2021 Last revised: 28 Nov 2022

Michael D. Sousa

University of Denver Sturm College of Law

Date Written: February 25, 2021

The exponential growth of problem-solving courts across the United States in the past several decades represents a paradigm shift in the American criminal justice system. These specialized courts depart from the traditional adversarial model commonly found in the judicial system towards a collaborative model of justice that endeavors to treat and rehabilitate offenders with underlying conditions as an alternative to incarceration. Drug treatment courts focus on providing drug addiction treatment services to offenders suffering from severe use disorders. As a condition of participating in drug court, offenders agree to be bound by a system of sanctions imposed by the court in response to certain proscribed behaviors. One concern with the quotidian operations of drug treatment courts is whether, and to what degree, procedural due process applies in situations where a participant receives a sanction amounting to a loss of liberty, either a short-term jail stay or an order to attend a residential treatment facility for a designated period of time. Despite their thirty-year existence, these issues remain unresolved. This Article highlights the current state of the law regarding procedural due process and liberty sanctions in drug treatment courts and then offers qualitative empirical data regarding how these knotty issues play out in action in the context of one adult drug treatment court located in a Western state. Ultimately, I assert that based upon the very special context in which these problem-solving courts operate, judicial precedent requires only minimal due process protections prior to the imposition of loss of liberty sanctions, and such protections can be satisfied by having drug court clients sign a knowing waiver of these rights prior to the imposition of such sanctions – a practice not presently done in large measure in drug treatment courts nationwide.

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Michael D. Sousa (Contact Author)

University of denver sturm college of law ( email ).

2255 E. Evans Avenue Denver, CO 80208 United States

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Research on drug courts: a critical review 2001 update

Published 2001
Law, Psychology

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Drug Treatment Courts: A Quantitative Review of Study and Treatment Quality

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From Our Programs

How Drug Courts Fall Short: A New Report Investigates this Policy Model’s Performance in the Americas

The SSRC’s Drugs, Security and Democracy program has recently released a report titled Drug Courts in the Americas . Here, program manager Cleia Noia provides an overview of the report’s findings and recommendations. In discussing how drug courts became the preferred alternative to incarceration not just in the United States but Latin America and the Caribbean, she highlights their limitations—especially their continued connection to the criminal justice system.

In the last few decades, drug courts have become an increasingly popular public policy model across the Americas. Proponents assert that drug courts are cost-effective, reduce recidivism and time spent in detention (prison or jail), and offer drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration for people whose drug use underlies their criminal activity. Since 2016, the SSRC’s Drugs, Security and Democracy (DSD) program 1 The Drugs, Security and Democracy (DSD) program supports research on drugs in Latin America and the Caribbean across a variety of disciplines with a goal of producing evidence-based knowledge to inform drug policy in the region and beyond. The program seeks to foster a global interdisciplinary network of researchers engaged with drug policy, committed to policy-relevant outcomes, and who can communicate their findings to relevant audiences. has worked to expand understanding of this policy, culminating in Drug Courts in the Americas , a comprehensive scholarly examination of the effectiveness and impact of drug courts in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The report reviewed key findings from the United States’ experience and found that drug courts, as implemented in the United States, are a costly, cumbersome intervention that has limited, if any, impact on reducing incarceration. This essay presents an overview of the report’s findings, including its recommendations to address the shortcomings of these courts.

The rise of drug courts

Although drug courts are not a new concept in the United States (they were first established in Miami in 1989, having since spread to all states and territories), their dissemination to other countries in the Americas is more recent. Although we have seen this policy model replicated in Latin America and the Caribbean since the early 2000s, there has been a rapid expansion in implementation of drug courts starting in 2012. The DSD program wanted to further explore this trend, particularly considering these courts’ increasing popularity in countries in the region despite the vast institutional, legal, and cultural differences between the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

It is no secret that incarceration for drug-related offenses and the significant increase in prison populations in the United States over the past decades are connected. For those working in the drug research/policy field, this has been evident for many years. Nonetheless, looking into actual numbers offers a much needed reminder of the scale. For example, according to the Federal Bureau of Prison’s statistics, of the 168,687 people incarcerated in US federal prisons in October 2018, 77,649 were imprisoned for drug offenses. 2 Statistics based on prior month’s data. “BOP Statistics: Inmate Offenses,” US Federal Bureau of Prisons, last modified November 24, 2018, accessed February 11, 2019, https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp . This number, of course, does not include those incarcerated in state prisons, local jails, juvenile correction facilities, and the like.

In light of these incarceration trends, consensus has been growing across the Americas on the need for drug law reform and alternatives to criminal sanctions for certain categories of drug offenses. These alternatives include measures that enable people to stay out of the criminal justice system in the first place, such as decriminalization of drug use and possession, and the diversion of law enforcement resources toward services outside the criminal justice system. It is within this context that drug courts have been promoted as an effective alternative to incarceration.

Exporting a flawed model

In practice, however, drug courts have become another arm of the criminal justice system, administering medical treatment and counseling via judges rather than experts. The evidence from the United States shows that drug courts can increase the supervision of individuals and expose them to more severe penalties than they would otherwise have received, thus sometimes becoming an adjunct rather than an alternative to incarceration. One of the main stated objectives of drug courts is to ensure access to comprehensive substance abuse treatment for those who need it. However, a review of the available evidence shows that, in practice, many participants in drug courts do not need treatment while, at the same time, the treatment may not be available or may be inappropriate for those who really need it. Among other limitations with this policy model, we found that the financial and human costs to drug court participants are also steep and disproportionately burdensome for the poor and racial minorities.

Further complicating this scenario is the concerted effort to export drug courts as a model that should be adopted by other countries. Despite the evidence from the United States experience cited above, the considerable influence of the United States in the region’s drug control policies and the support for the model from the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission have certainly encouraged countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to embrace drug courts as a promising solution to the over-incarceration problem that plagues the region. This development is problematic not only because governments in the region apparently are not doing a proper review of the available evidence before adopting drug courts as a public policy model, but also because the very specific social, economic, and political context of Latin American and Caribbean countries immediately complicates the adoption of public policies designed by other, more developed countries with different legal systems. Furthermore, many drug courts in the region still focus on simple drug possession as a crime, contributing to the criminalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs.

Moving forward

Drug Courts in the Americas presents a series of recommendations that should be seriously considered by countries concerned with mass incarceration and that intend to move away from overreliance on criminal justice responses to drug use. We developed the recommendations with two groups in mind: countries that have not established drug courts or in which they are in early stages, and countries with established drug courts that have overwhelming support, thus making it difficult (but not impossible) to address the issues raised there.

For those in the first group, the recommendations include several of the following concrete steps:

distinguishing between drug use and drug dependence and recognizing that not all drug use is problematic or requires treatment to address it, and
providing financial and technical resources to expand and improve comprehensive harm-reduction services in communities, including evidence-based drug treatment programs that are not linked to the criminal justice system.
taking the necessary legislative and other measures to ensure people who commit minor or nonviolent drug offenses and are in need of treatment are directed, prior to arrest or the opening of a criminal proceeding, to community-based services tailored to their specific needs.

For the countries in the second group, despite the report’s main conclusion that drug courts are not an appropriate solution for the issues they were ostensibly designed to address, we also present a series of measures that could be put in place to minimize the negative impacts of their implementation, including, but not limited to:

Drug courts should target people who have been charged with serious offenses, including violent crimes, that otherwise would result in incarceration and who would benefit from drug dependence treatment.
The existence of a criminal record and the nature of the offense should not render a potential participant ineligible, as is often the case.
Returning to drug use is a normal part of the recovery process and should not be the basis for dismissal from a program or the imposition of sanctions, such as detention or more frequent court appearances or drug testing.
Participation in drug courts should not be dependent on paying fines, fees, or any other costs, nor should failure to do so be criminally sanctioned.

Undoubtedly, countries should focus on moving away from an excessive reliance on incarceration as a panacea. Nonetheless, a close examination of the United States as a case study does not support the drug court model as the most appropriate solution for governments genuinely focused on addressing this issue, since in some respects it continues to criminalize drug consumption and prioritize a criminal approach to drug dependence over a health approach.

On a final note, it is important to bear in mind that this is not simply an issue of comparing drug courts and incarceration, but whether or not drug courts truly represent a public policy focused on the health of people with substance abuse problems. The countries that consider this model must take this into account and answer the following question: Is it really necessary to mediate treatment through the criminal justice system?

To read the full report (available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese), please visit: https://www.ssrc.org/publications/view/drug-courts-in-the-americas/ .

The DSD Program would like to thank the authors of the report—Rebecca Schleifer, Tania Ramirez, Elizabeth Ward, and Carol Watson Williams—as well as Coletta Youngers (project advisor) and all the specialists who reviewed early versions of the report and offered invaluable comments.

References:

Cleia Noia is the program manager of the Drugs, Security and Democracy Program. She received her law degree from Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie in Brazil and her master's degree in law and diplomacy, with a focus on international development and human security, from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Prior to joining the Council in February 2014, Cleia worked as a corporate lawyer in Brazil and consulted on Brazil's drug policy for the Open Society Foundations.

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Adult Drug Court Research to Practice (R2P) Initiative

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Cite this Article

Treating Substance Use Disorders in the Criminal Justice System

The large number of individuals with substance use disorders involved in the nation’s criminal justice system (CJS) represents a unique opportunity, as well as challenges, in addressing the dual concerns of public safety and public health. Unfortunately, a low proportion of those who could benefit from treatment actually receive it while involved in the CJS. This article presents a review of recent research on the effectiveness of major substance abuse treatment interventions used at different possible linkage points during criminal justice case processing, including diversion, jail, prison, and community supervision. This is followed by a discussion of key research and practice issues, including low rates of treatment access and under-utilization of medication-assisted treatment. Concluding comments discuss principles of effective treatment for offenders and identify key gaps in research and practice that need to be addressed to improve and expand provision of effective treatment for offenders.

Introduction

The number of individuals involved in the US criminal justice system (CJS) is among the highest in the developed world. In 2011, there were an estimated 12.4 million arrests, including 1.5 million for drug offenses (possession or sale) [ 1 ]. Nearly 4 million adults are under probation supervision (one out of every 60 adults in the USA) and 854,000 on parole [ 2 ]. There were 11.6 million persons admitted to jails during a recent 12-month period [ 3 ]. At the end of 2012, there were about 2.3 million incarcerated adults, including 736,000 in local jails (on an average day), 1,382,418 in state prisons, and 216,362 in federal prisons (48% of the latter were convicted of drug crimes) [ 4 ].

Most individuals entering the CJS are using illegal drugs at the time of their arrest and/or have substance abuse problems [ 5 , 6• , 7 ]. Further, many commit property crimes to obtain money to buy drugs, and participation in drug-dealing organizations often places individuals in situations where other crimes are likely to occur. Stimulants, such as cocaine or methamphetamine, have psychopharmacological effects that can increase the likelihood of engaging in violent crime [ 8 ]. More than 80% of state prison and local jail inmates have used an illegal drug—about 55% in the month before their arrest [ 4 , 5 , 9 ]—with high lifetime usage of cocaine (42%), crack (24%), methamphetamine (23%), or heroin (19%). Based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV criteria, 53.4% of inmates meet the criteria for drug abuse or dependence, compared with an estimated 13.0% of men and 5.5% of women in community populations aged 18 years or older [ 4 , 10 ]. Among offenders on probation, 69% reported ever using illegal drugs, including 32% using in the month before their current offense [ 11 ]. In addition, 32% of state prison inmates were under the influence of drugs at the time of the offense, and 16.5% reported committing their crime to get money to buy drugs [ 4 ].

Illegal drug use increases the likelihood of continued involvement in criminal activity, with high rates of relapse and recidivism found among drug-involved offenders; 68% of drug offenders are rearrested within 3 years of release from prison [ 12 ]. Because there are effective treatment models for offenders [ 13• , 14• ], expanding access to these is likely to help break the links between drug use and crime. This article, therefore, reviews current knowledge about treatment access and effectiveness at each stage of the criminal justice process, and key issues for improving access to effective treatment.

Treatment Linkage Points in the CJS

There a several stages in criminal case processing at which linkages to treatment are possible. Following arrest and filing of formal charges by the prosecutor based on sufficient evidence of a crime, the defendant has an initial hearing at which the charges are formally presented and the judge decides whether to detain the defendant in the local jail pending trial, or release him or her with or without bail. After one or more procedural or evidentiary hearings, the defendant may plead guilty, or a trial will occur in the misdemeanor or felony court. If the defendant is convicted (which occurs by plea for the vast majority of cases), the judge sentences the defendant to options ranging from a fine or community service, incarceration in the local city or county jail (for less than a year on a misdemeanor conviction,) or state prison (sentence of longer than 1 year for a felony conviction,), or probation. Once an inmate has completed a minimum term in a state prison, many inmates are released to parole supervision until the full sentence is completed.

Models for linking offenders to treatment have been implemented and tested at all of the stages of CJS processing. Shortly after arrest, a defendant might receive a screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment [ 15 ], or be diverted to community treatment under pretrial supervision conditions [ 16 , 17 ], or as an alternative to an incarceration sentence [ 18 , 19 ]. Many jurisdictions have special drug treatment courts into which offenders may be diverted prior to trial or placed in following conviction [ 20 – 22 ]. After the sentence, treatment access may be available in jails [ 23 ], prisons [ 24 , 25 ], or under probation or parole supervision [ 26• , 27 ]. For the latter linkage points, treatment is often mandated as a condition of the individuals’ sentence.

Depending on the state, treatment at any of these stages may be offered through local public health systems, contracted providers, or referred through a brokerage model in which services are offered by various providers, usually through referral by a case manager. Options include outpatient, intensive outpatient, residential, and medication-assisted treatment. In state prisons, the typical residential treatment is in a modified therapeutic community (TC); TCs are much less common in local jails because these inmates are usually incarcerated for brief periods. TCs provide an intensive, highly structured pro-social environment in which treatment staff and peers interact to influence attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors associated with drug use [ 28 ]. Nonresidential or outpatient treatment in correctional settings is less intensive and usually involves a combination of individual and group counseling, several times per week. Finally, despite its well-established evidence base, medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is rarely used in the CJS, as discussed later in this article.

Even with these numerous potential linkage points, relatively few offenders with substance abuse problems receive drug treatment [ 5 , 26• ]. Among new arrestees, between 7 and 26% had ever been in outpatient treatment and 13–32% residential or inpatient treatment, but only 2–9% had been in outpatient and 3–11% residential or inpatient in the 12 months prior to their arrest, suggesting high rates of treatment failure because the individuals have been arrested again [ 7 ]. Only about 10% of state and 6% of jail inmates reported receiving any clinical treatment [ 9 ]. Only 25% of probationers with histories of drug use, and 17% overall, receive treatment [ 11 ], and treatment linkages that do occur tend to be sporadic, inappropriate, and poorly monitored [ 6• , 11 , 29 , 30 ]. Finally, despite their popularity, drug courts are estimated to serve only about 5% of offenders with drug problems [ 31 , 32 ].

Diversion to Treatment

In the typical model, new arrestees are offered an opportunity to have their cases put on hold while they attend drug treatment. Successful completion of treatment typically results in the original criminal charges being dismissed (for pre-plea models), the withdrawal of the guilty plea and dismissal of the charges or plea to lower charges (post-plea model), or a reduction in the sentence from incarceration to probation (in the post-plea, post-sentencing model). With the exception of drug courts, diversion programs are nearly always operated and controlled by the district attorney, who has overall responsibility for screening cases for eligibility and monitoring individuals’ treatment progress.

Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities (TASC) was one of the earliest treatment diversion models [ 17 ], and 220 TASC programs currently operate in the USA [ 33 ]. TASC integrates treatment into the CJS, providing assessment, treatment referral, case management, and monitoring. A multisite national evaluation of TASC was conducted in five states in the late 1990s [ 34 ], using both experimental (two sites) and quasi-experimental designs (three sites). Relative to control/comparison groups, TASC participants received significantly more treatment in four out of five sites. Compared with control conditions, drug use significantly declined from baseline to follow-up in three sites, as did recidivism in two of the sites.

The Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison program (DTAP) was established by the Kings County (NY) District Attorney in 1990 to divert offenders into long-term residential treatment [ 19 ]. Although most prosecutorial diversion programs opt for the politically safe strategy of accepting only low-risk offenders, DTAP targets high-risk felony drug sellers who also have drug problems and are facing mandatory prison sentences. DTAP participants have their sentence deferred and are placed in community-based residential TC treatment for 18–24 months. Program completers have their sentence vacated, guilty plea withdrawn, and original charges dismissed; dropouts are brought back to court for sentencing on the original charges. From the beginning of the program through October 2012, DTAP had admitted 3,022 participants, of whom 1,377 successfully completed the program; the average 1e-year retention rate is 76%, far higher than typically found in residential treatment [ 18 , 19 ].

A prospective quasi-experimental evaluation of DTAP found positive impacts on retention, recidivism, and CJS economic benefits compared with a matched sample of sentenced inmates [ 35 ]. Over 4-year follow-up, significantly fewer DTAP participants were rearrested (57% versus 75% for the comparison sample), reconvicted (34% for DTAP, 62% for comparisons), or reincarcerated (7% of DTAP versus 18% of comparisons received a new prison sentence, 30% versus 51% a new jail sentence) [ 35 ]. DTAP decreased the rearrest odds by 42%, after controlling for other factors. The cumulative 6-year CJS economic benefits per DTAP participant were $88,554, with a benefit–cost ratio of 2.17, adjusting for treatment costs [ 36 ].

California’s Proposition 36 (Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act; SACPA), was enacted in 2001 to reduce jail and prison crowding by diverting all non-violent drug offenders from incarceration to community-based supervision and treatment. It marked a major paradigm shift from crime control to the implementation of a public health model [ 37 , 38 ]. During 2006 and 2007, nearly 44,000 offenders entered treatment under Proposition 36 [ 39 ]. Overall, SACPA resulted in significant decreases in drug use and criminality from baseline to 12-month follow-up [ 37 ]; the more treatment received, the better the outcomes [ 40 ]. However, offenders with a more serious criminal history and parolees (relative to probationers) showed poorer outcomes, perhaps attributable to a mismatch between need severity and level of treatment [ 41 , 42 ].

Jail-based Treatment

Given their high admission volume, jails represent a significant potential treatment intervention point in the CJS. With rapid turnover and short average stays, however, there are challenges for providing treatment in jails [ 3 , 23 , 43 ]. Treatment options such as long-term residential or intensive outpatient treatment, needed by many offenders [ 5 ], are not viable in jail settings, and Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) interventions may be more appropriate [ 6• ].

Recent studies suggest promising models for engaging jail inmates in treatment. The Jail In-Reach Intervention was recently tested in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with female jail inmates [ 44 ]. Implementing an SBIRT model, this intervention uses evidence-based screening tools to identify those with a serious substance abuse problem. Following randomization, women in the intervention group completed a motivational interview with feedback on their drug use, and a timeline follow-back interview. Women in both intervention and control groups also received a resource folder with information about community-based treatment. The intervention group had significantly lower alcohol and drug use at a 12-month follow-up. Women who used the resource folder, regardless of study condition, were three times more likely to seek community-based treatment [ 45 ].

Building on the Transtheoretical Model of Change and Motivational Enhancement Therapy, interactive journaling was tested in a jail [ 46 ]. This approach has been tested in other settings and could be well-suited for jails because it is time-efficient and requires few resources. Inmates were randomly assigned to complete a journal, designed to help the individual recognize the problems caused by substance abuse, to understand their motivations for using drugs, and to introduce them to drug treatment resources. Compared with the control condition, the interactive journaling group had significantly lower recidivism. The study did not assess whether the intervention increased engagement in community treatment after release.

The importance of linking jail inmates to continuing care after release has received increasing attention. One recent study found that community-based drug treatment following release from jail reduced recidivism [ 47 ]. The Recovery Management Check-ups (RMC) intervention was tested in a RCT with female inmates in the Cook County (IL) jail [ 48 ]. For the first 3 months following release, women in the RMC had monthly contact from a “linkage manager” who, using motivational interviewing, discussed recent substance abuse, motivation to change, and barriers to entering treatment. The linkage manager also made appointments and accompanied the women to the treatment admission process. RMC participation resulted in a higher proportion of women seeking community-based treatment, faster treatment access, and an increased likelihood to abstain from drug use during follow up [ 48 ].

Prison-based Treatment

Research on prison TCs, including several meta-analyses, suggests that these interventions can reduce post-prison recidivism and relapse when combined with aftercare treatment following release. A systematic review examined 26 published and unpublished studies of prison drug treatment in North America or Western Europe since 1979, including counseling and drug education programs, in addition to TCs [ 13• ]. Three-quarters of the studies had outcomes that favored the treatment group over the comparison group, with an overall mean odds ratio of 1.25 (equivalent to a modest reduction in recidivism from 50% to 44.5%). TC programs showed the strongest overall effect (mean odds ratio =1.47). 1

Several recent single-site evaluations of prison TCs indicated positive effects for prison TCs, especially when aftercare is completed. A quasi-experimental study of Delaware’s Key-Crest program (in-prison TC, following by a TC-based work-release program and outpatient aftercare) found significantly lower recidivism rates among those who completed a work-release TC [ 25 ]. Those who attended outpatient aftercare had the best outcomes (69% arrest-free after 3 years, 35% drug free); only 17% of those completing just the in-prison TC remained arrest-free and only 5% of the untreated comparison group remained drug free. Another quasi-experimental study in Pennsylvania examined post-release outcomes for inmates who participated in TCs compared with a matched sample of inmates who were TC-eligible, but participated in less intensive treatment (e.g., short-term drug education or outpatient treatment) [ 49 ]. Over a post-release follow-up up to 26 months, TCs significantly reduced reincarceration (30% versus 41% for the comparison sample) and rearrest (24% versus 33%), but not drug relapse (35% versus 39%) [ 49 ]. Finally, a retrospective propensity score matched study of prison releasees in Minnesota found that prison TC participation reduced the hazard ratio of rearrest by 17% and reincarceration by 25% over the 3–4 year follow-up period [ 50 ].

However, multiple reviews have noted that many prison TC studies have methodological weaknesses that suggest caution for drawing causal inferences about prison TC impacts [ 13• , 51 – 53 ]. Mitchell et al. [ 13• ] noted that only three studies (9%) had the highest quality (randomized experimental designs), and eight (25%) were rated in the second highest quality category (rigorous quasi-experimental designs). Threats to internal validity in prison TC research include self-selection and/or attrition bias, lack of full randomization, lack of detailed descriptions of the treatment delivered, and concerns about treatment implementation. One exception was a study of federal prison residential treatment, that controlled for selection bias, but still found a significant reduction in post-release rearrest after 6 months (3.1% of treated inmates rearrested, 16.7% of untreated inmates) and reduced drug or alcohol use (20.5% of treated inmates using drugs or alcohol compared with 36.7% of untreated inmates) [ 54 ]. A systematic review of prison treatment aftercare research could not draw definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of aftercare owing to inconsistent definitions and methodological weaknesses [ 51 ].

Treatment in Community-based Corrections

In a national probability survey of community-based corrections (i.e., probation and parole), it was found that the most common approach to addressing substance abuse was drug and alcohol education (53.1% of jurisdictions) [ 26• ]. Substance abuse counseling of up to 4 hours per week was provided in just over half (47.0%) of jurisdictions, and 21.2% offered 5–25 hours of treatment per week. Only 3.7% of jurisdictions offering segregated TCs and 3.4% offering non-segregated TCs. Similar to other studies, treatment was accessed by only a small percentage; between 1 and 9% are in any type of program on a given day [ 26• ].

Research on the comparative effectiveness of different treatment modalities or treatment delivery models for offenders under community-based correctional supervision is limited. Only one meta-analysis compared substance abuse treatment outcomes for offenders in prisons or jails with those under community supervision [ 55 ]. This study found that both types of programs were almost equally effective; however, this study was limited to European programs. A quasi-experimental study of a 6-month modified TC for offenders on probation examined program retention and recidivism [ 27 , 56 ]. More serious criminal history, higher hostility and risk-taking, and cannabis dependence were related to higher dropout rates; greater social conformity and employment were associated with lower likelihood of dropout [ 56 ]. Age and the number of lifetime arrests were the only significant predictors of reincarceration after 2 years. However, TC treatment did not reduce recidivism over a 2-year follow-up relative to the comparison sample [ 27 ].

The Serious and Violent Offenders Reentry Initiative (SVORI) for parolees in ten states found that between 32 and 34% of adult men surveyed expressed some health service needs (including substance abuse) [ 57 ]. However, in recent analyses of the SVORI data we found that only 25.5% of adult male parolees reported receiving any type of substance abuse treatment in the first 3 months after release.

Drug Courts

Drug courts have received much attention and expanded rapidly over the last 20 years [ 20 , 22 , 58 , 59 ]; 1,317 adult drug courts were in operation at the end of 2009 in the USA [ 60 ]. Core components of the drug court include linkage to long-term substance abuse treatment under close judicial supervision; case management and team decision-making; and use of sanctions and incentives to enforce drug court requirements [ 21 , 61 ]. Depending on the drug court, offenders may be diverted before conviction (with charges dismissed upon successful completion), or placed in the drug court after pleading guilty or being sentenced (with dismissal of charges or reduction in the sentence after successful program completion).

Substantial research over the last 15 years, including several RCTs and meta-analyses, indicates that adult drug courts reduce drug use and criminal behavior during program participation, and reduce post-program recidivism [ 59 , 62 – 65 ]. A meta-analysis of 55 studies found a mean recidivism reduction of 26% in adult drug courts [ 65 ]. A recent updated meta-analysis found on average that drug courts reduced recidivism from 50% to 38% [ 64• ].

However, the evidence base for the drug court model should be interpreted with some caution. Many studies used relatively non-rigorous evaluations, or had small sample sizes, inconsistent measures, short follow-up periods, or inappropriate comparison samples [ 58 , 66 ]. Little is known about the long-term post-program impacts of drug courts on recidivism, drug use, or other outcomes [ 59 , 66 ]. Aside from the broad guidelines codified in the consensus-driven Ten Key Components of drug courts [ 21 , 61 ], the drug court model is not well-defined nor have the specific effective components been determined through adequately controlled studies.

Key Issues in Research and Practice

Lack of treatment penetration into the target population.

Despite the evidence summarized above, penetration of effective treatment models into the target population of drug-involved offenders is low [ 5 , 26• , 32 , 67 , 68 ]. Findings from national surveys demonstrate that non-treatment approaches to substance abuse, such as drug education, are the most common form of service provided for substance abusing offenders [ 5 , 26• ]. The second most common form of treatment within prisons, jails, and probation services is low intensity counseling, which has a minimal evidence base. Although group counseling can be effective [ 13• , 69 ], longer and more intensive programs tend to be more effective for offender populations [ 14• ]. Despite some evidence base for prison TCs [ 13• ], these programs are relatively expensive and treatment slots are scarce both in prison facilities, as well as the community. MAT, with a fairly strong evidence base, is rarely used in the CJS [ 26• , 70 , 71 ].

Although guidelines for integrating evidence-based practices (EBPs) into the CJS are available [ 6• , 14• , 72• ], numerous barriers exist for implementing such treatment programs [ 53 , 68 , 73 , 74 ]. These include knowledge gaps among criminal justice staff, as well as their beliefs and attitudes about treatment and specific EBPs. Skepticism toward treatment effectiveness in general has been noted among police and prosecutors, which might undermine efforts to place individuals into diversion programs [ 38 ]. Many CJS officials and staff may also not be comfortable with the concept of addiction as a brain disease, viewing it as more of a behavioral problem over which offenders have some control [ 6• ]. Significant communication and collaboration problems, both within and between criminal justice and community-based treatment and health agencies, can thwart implementation of high quality services [ 73 ]. Resource constraints make the adoption of “expensive” EBPs unattractive and unlikely [ 70 , 71 , 73 ]. Criminal justice organizational cultures also can be highly resistant to change. And, finally, organizational changes and high rates of staff turnover make it difficult to begin new and maintain existing treatment services [ 75 – 77 ].

Under-utilization of MAT

An illustration of the failure to expand use of EBPs for drug-involved offenders is the relatively limited use of MAT. Evidence supporting the efficacy and effectiveness MAT is based largely on studies of methadone, although recent studies with buprenorphine and naltrexone have shown some promise [ 78 – 81 ]. Recent systematic reviews of MAT with offenders have concluded that methadone maintenance and naltrexone reduce reoffending and relapse [ 55 , 82 ]. For example, in a RCT with inmates it was found that those assigned to maintenance treatment during incarceration were less likely to drop out from treatment and less likely to test positive for illicit drugs after release than those in non-MAT during incarceration or those who were only transferred onto methadone maintenance after release [ 83• ]. Post-release drug use was reduced for inmates receiving counseling plus methadone, but MAT had no significant effect on recidivism. In a companion study, it was found that inmates randomly assigned to methadone maintenance in prison were most likely to enter treatment, followed by those transferred to methadone maintenance after release and then counseling only [ 84 ]. Maintenance patients were also most likely to complete prison treatment and counseling only the least likely.

MAT begun during jail can improve community-based MAT treatment engagement and outcomes. A recent study randomly assigned opioid-dependent inmates in a large urban jail to either buprenorphine or methadone [ 85 ]. In-jail treatment completion rates were similar, but the buprenorphine group was significantly more likely to continue medication treatment in the community; groups had similar rates of self-reported criminal involvement and substance use at 3-month follow-up [ 85 ]. Higher doses of methadone in jail were found to significantly increase linkage to continuing care in community-based treatment following release [ 86 ].

A preliminary retrospective evaluation of extended release naltrexone (Vivitrol) with alcohol-dependent clients in three drug courts found that volunteers for Vivitrol had significantly lower rearrest likelihood than matched controls (8% versus 26%) [ 87 ]. Studies of California’s Proposition 36 found that opioid-dependent offenders who received MAT showed better outcomes than those who received only outpatient or residential care [ 88 ]. Injectable sustained release naltrexone has also shown positive effects on retention in community treatment [ 89 ].

Many staff hold negative views toward methadone maintenance treatment for opioid dependence, viewing it as substituting one addiction for another [ 70 , 90 ]. A recent national survey of corrections staff in 14 states found very limited use of MAT [ 70 ]. Although 83% of prisons and 83% of jails offered some type of MAT; most of this was limited to detoxification, and typically only for pregnant women. Only 37.5% of drug courts and 17% of probation or parole agencies offered MAT. Methadone maintenance, when offered, was usually limited to pregnant women, or, occasionally, for individuals previously on methadone maintenance at the time of their incarceration or arrest. The lack of uptake of MAT in the CJS reflects state and local regulations, security concerns, institutional philosophy (i.e., belief in abstinence-based treatment), and availability and resources (financial and staffing) [ 70 ]. In a recent national survey of 103 drug courts, 56% reported having some type of MAT available (although the percentage of drug clients receiving such treatment was not reported) [ 71 ]. About half of the drug courts have a specific policy against use of MAT. Lack of funding, treatment program resistance, and risk of diversion were other common reasons cited for the limited use of MAT.

Principles of Effective Treatment for Offenders

The delivery of effective drug treatment in the CJS can be much more challenging than in standard community settings. In response, consensus and research-driven efforts have established a set of principles for providing effective treatment for offenders [ 14• , 91 ]. Such principles incorporate the unique characteristics of the offender populations that can greatly complicate treatment delivery. These include high rates of psychological conditions and personality disorders, such as low impulse control, cognitive deficits, risk-taking, and criminal thinking patterns. Treatment for offenders that incorporates the risk–needs–responsivity (RNR) principle has been shown to be more effective [ 30 , 92 ]. Under the RNR framework, evidence-based principles for effective treatment should incorporate 1) comprehensive actuarial assessment of static and dynamic risk factors with periodic reassessment; 2) prioritizing treatment resources for higher-risk offenders; 3) targeting interventions for criminogenic needs, such as criminal thinking and errors in judgment; and 4) provide treatment that is responsive to an offender’s temperament, learning style, motivation, culture, and gender [ 68 , 93 ].

NIDA has developed a monograph summarizing key principles for effective treatment in the CJS. Building on the original set of NIDA treatment principles [ 94 ], this guide is based on a review of the research literature and consensus from experts in addiction research and practice. Most of the principles reflect what the field considers to be evidence-based practice or principles , rather than specific programs. In addition to the principles noted above, NIDA recommends that treatment for offender populations should 1) be of sufficient length, especially for those with co-occurring mental health disorders and other social and health problems; 2) increase motivation and build skills for resisting drug use and criminal behavior; 3) include on-going monitoring through urine testing, and use of structured rewards and sanctions to manage behavior; 4) involve collaboration and communication between treatment clinicians and CJS staff to monitor client progress; 5) provide continuity of care as offenders move through the CJS and back to the community; 6) integrate treatment for offenders with co-occurring mental health disorders; and 7) use MAT where clinically appropriate, with careful attention to monitoring adherence [ 14• ].

Several conclusions can be drawn from this brief review. First, drug use disorders and related problems are quite common among offenders throughout the CJS, indicating a need to integrate and expand effective treatment linkages. Second, a number of potentially effective models exist for linking offenders to treatment both within correctional institutions and in the community, at all points in the process from arrest through sentencing. Diversion models such as TASC, DTAP, and SACPA have been shown to reduce drug use and recidivism, and diversion-model drug courts have also shown to be effective for reducing recidivism, especially when higher-risk offenders are targeted. Legally mandated treatment can improve retention [ 18 ], and treatment outcomes can be similar to outcomes in non-mandated treatment for offenders.

For local jail inmates, brief psychosocial interventions to increase self-awareness and treatment motivation, treatment referral monitoring, and in-jail initiation of and/or referral to community-based MAT can link jail inmates to community treatment and improving post-release outcomes. SBIRT models may be well-suited for the highly transitory jail setting, where short stays preclude implementing longer-term drug treatment programs. Longer-term programs in jails can, however, be suitable for offenders sentenced to jail terms of 3 months or longer.

A number of prison TC studies show positive impacts on recidivism and relapse when combined with continuing community care, but caution is needed in drawing conclusions owing to methodological problems with some of the research, and the relatively low proportion of inmates who access aftercare following release. More research, using stronger designs and controlling for selection bias, is needed on the types and length of aftercare that are most effective for reducing relapse and recidivism [ 51 ]. There has been relatively little research on the impact of other types of prison treatment. Recent pilot studies suggest that MAT (included extended release naltrexone) may have promise for improving outcomes for offenders with opioid dependence. There has been very little research on effective treatment models or modalities for offenders on probation or parole, despite the fact that a majority of offenders are under such supervision.

Given this demonstrated treatment need, and numerous linkage points, the challenge for researchers and clinicians is to increase knowledge about how best to integrate treatment into the criminal justice process at all stages, and reduce the substantial existing gap in treatment access. Although offenders (especially those charged with felonies) are under the supervision of the CJS for a relatively long time [ 95 ], the fragmented nature of the CJ process presents difficulties in implementing integrated treatment that provides continuity of care and regular, evidence-based assessment. The importance of a continuum of care, and the crucial need to link jail and prison inmates to community treatment after release has been amply noted in the literature [ 29 , 51 , 96• ]. Resources to support increased treatment capacity for offenders are needed, as well as mechanisms for reducing gaps in Medicaid insurance coverage when offenders are incarcerated.

New research on staff, organizations, and systems is needed to understand the barriers to treatment access, and to develop and test strategies for increasing implementation and sustainment of EBP for offender drug treatment [ 68 , 97 ]. Taxman and Belenko [ 68 ] have argued that criminal justice services should act as a part of “seamless service delivery system”, wherein offenders with substance abuse problems are treated within the CJS or linked to service providers offering evidence-based treatment. The limited penetration of treatment services into the CJS is all the more problematic given that a number of economic studies, in multiple criminal justice areas (community treatment [ 98 ], prison TCs with after care [ 99 ], other prison-based treatment [ 100 ] and drug courts [ 101 , 102 ]), have demonstrated that criminal justice-based drug treatment is cost effective and provides net economic benefits for the CJS, primarily from reduced incarceration and victimization.

Organizational and implementation studies are needed to understand how best to increase the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of evidence-based treatment for offenders [ 68 ]. The emerging field of implementation science seeks to understand how programs and practices are implemented into organizations, and new theories and conceptual frameworks are being developed to identify the key factors that drive successful implementation and sustainability of EBP, helping to guide new research on these processes [ 97 , 103 , 104 ].

Matching service needs and the level and type of service provided is another important consideration [ 105 ]; the RNR principle suggests that improving such alignment, addressing criminogenic factors, and matching treatment to the cognitive abilities of offenders, will improve outcomes. Offenders also tend to have a high likelihood of economic and social disadvantage, and other comorbid health problems; this raises the importance of delivering treatment to offenders, and increases the challenges of implementing appropriate and effective treatment [ 6• ].

There is also limited knowledge about the comparative effectiveness of different treatment modalities or linkage models for different types of offenders at each stage of the criminal justice process. More research, using strong designs and measures to facilitate causal inferences, can help elucidate the optimal and most cost-effective interventions in terms of length and intensity of treatment, modalities, types of services, and supervision models [ 106 ]. For existing interventions with some evidence of effectiveness, such as drug courts, diversion programs, and prison TCs, new research is needed on the effective operational components of these programs to improve replication and monitoring of fidelity.

A new research, practice, and policy agenda can provide the impetus to build on the existing evidence and clinical practice base to expand access to effective drug treatment for offenders. Given the enormous need to address substance abuse problems among offenders, the potential for improving both public health and public safety is substantial.

Acknowledgments

This paper was supported in part by NIDA grant U01DA025284.

1 The effectiveness of non-TC prison drug treatment remains largely unknown [ 13 , 52 ]. An earlier systematic review of prison programs reviewed seven studies of prison-based outpatient or group counseling programs [ 107 ]. Methodological weaknesses were present in most of these studies, but the authors concluded that group counseling programs were not effective in reducing recidivism [ 107 ].

Compliance with Ethics Guidelines

Conflict of Interest

Steven Belenko has received research support from NIDA and royalties from Springer. Matthew Hiller declares that he has no conflict of interest. Leah Hamilton has received research support from NIDA.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Are Drug Courts Effective? Drug Court Success Rate Statistics

Meredith Emigh, University of New Haven

Drug courts were designed to divert drug-involved offenders with less serious charges into treatment instead of prison. It is estimated that 78% of property crimes and 77% of public order offenses are related to drug or alcohol abuse, which costs the United States $74 billion a year (CASA, 2010). This includes the cost of police, court, prison, probation and parole services. Substance-involved offenders are more likely to recidivate than their sober peers (CASA, 2010). Proponents of the drug court model claim that it prevents recidivism while also saving a considerable amount of money. However, evaluation research is necessary to determine whether drug courts are truly effective.

There have been many evaluation studies of drug courts in the last two decades, most of which suggest that drug courts are at least somewhat effective. Unfortunately, these studies relied on methodology that does not provide the most scientifically rigorous results, including quasi-experimental and retrospective designs. This paper will review the current research on drug court effectiveness to determine whether these courts meet the dual goals of saving money while lowering rates of recidivism and substance use.

History and Design of Drug Courts

The first drug court in the United States was established in Miami, FL in 1989 (Goldkamp, White, & Robinson, 2001). Over the next two decades, drug courts were implemented at a rapid pace in all 50 states (Carey & Finnegan, 2004). By 2012, there were an estimated 2400 drug courts in the United States (Mitchell, Wilson, Eggers, & MacKenzie, 2012). Unfortunately, there is no centralized record keeping for drug courts, making it very difficult to know exactly how many people attend drug courts each year.

Drug courts were designed to put treatment and rehabilitation ahead of punishment. They are based on a psychosocial theory of crime as something that can be treated (Brown, 2011). There is empirical evidence that treatment improves long-term outcomes compared to incarceration, because it addresses the causes of crime and improves an individual’s ability to reintegrate into his/her community (Brown, 2011). Approximately 65% of prison inmates in the United States meet the medical criteria for addiction, but only about 11% of them receive treatment (CASA, 2010). In comparison, 68% of drug court participants receive treatment (Gottfredson, Najaka, & Kearley, 2003).

The exact type of treatments offered varies widely between drug courts. Behavioral treatments include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), as well as individual, group, and family therapy. Some programs include medical detoxification treatments, whereas others offer acupuncture, 12-step programs, or behavioral relapse prevention programs (Gottfredson et al., 2003). In addition, some drug courts offer ancillary services such as education and job training; medical care and education; assistance with housing, finances, and legal matters; and social or athletic activities (Lutze & van Wormer, 2007; Peters & Murrin, 2000).

Target Population

For most drug courts, the target population is offenders who are being charged with a substance-involved offense (Mitchell et al., 2012). These are usually drug charges, but may include other non-violent offenses committed by defendants with substance abuse issues (Peters & Murrin, 2000). Drug court participants are often first-time offenders, frequently juveniles, but are sometimes chosen due to a history of substance-involved offenses. The screening criteria vary between drug courts and depend on local policies, but most include some measure of how motivated the offender is to be treated, in addition to considerations of criminal and substance use histories (Evans, Li, Urada, & Anglin, 2014). Purposively choosing offenders with higher levels of treatment motivation, while likely leading to better outcomes, presents a challenge to evaluation research because it introduces a systematic bias into the sample. This is discussed in further detail below.

Goals and Objectives

The goals of drug courts are to reduce substance use and to reduce recidivism (Goldkamp et al., 2001; Lutze & van Wormer, 2007). Most drug courts also strive to help offenders reintegrate into their communities, especially if they have participated in inpatient treatment or served a prison sentence (Brown, 2011; Lutze & van Wormer, 2007). Finally, drug courts seek to reduce the prison population and reduce the costs spent on corrections (Brown, 2011; Evans et al., 2014; Lowenkamp, Holsinger, & Latessa, 2005; Peters & Murrin, 2000). A well-designed and implemented program can achieve these goals, as discussed below.

The Role of Court Personnel

Offenders are typically selected for inclusion in the drug court program by the prosecutor (Drug Courts Program Office, 1997). The defense attorney, in addition to protecting their client’s rights, generally explains the program to the defendant and encourages his/her participation (Drug Courts Program Office, 1997; Lutze & van Wormer, 2007). A referral to drug court can occur either before or after the offender makes a plea (Marlowe, Festinger, Lee, Dugosh, & Benasutti, 2006; Mitchell et al., 2012). If the offender agrees to enter a drug court pre-plea, the charges are usually dropped; s/he also waives the right to a speedy trial by beginning treatment in place of the normal court process (Mitchell et al., 2012). A post-plea decision to enter drug court usually involves a suspended sentence pending successful completion of the treatment program (Gottfredson et al., 2003; Marlowe et al., 2006).

The judge is the central figure in a drug court and, unlike a regular courtroom, interacts directly with the offender (Carey & Finnegan, 2004; Drug Courts Program Office, 1997; Goldkamp et al., 2001). The judge supervises program participation through frequent status hearings, providing rewards for offenders who attend treatment sessions and pass the drug screening tests, and issuing sanctions to offenders who do not (Lutze & van Wormer, 2007; Marlowe et al., 2006; Peters & Murrin, 2000).

Evidence-Based Treatment Methods

Status hearings with the judge contribute to behavior modification using the principles of operant learning, which include reinforcement through punishment and reward (Goldkamp et al., 2001; Turner et al., 2002). Rewards can include praise and encouragement from the judge, tokens, and graduation certificates. Sanctions should be graduated, starting with a warning from the judge and increasing to short jail stays (48 hours) or termination from the program for persistent repeat infractions (Mitchell et al., 2012). Some drug courts provide general deterrence through observational learning techniques, by requiring offenders to attend status hearings in groups (Goldkamp et al., 2001). This allows offenders to see each other being rewarded and sanctioned, so that they understand which behaviors will earn them rewards or sanctions.

Most drug courts involve three phases of treatment (Mitchell et al., 2012; Peters & Murrin, 2000). The first phase is stabilization, which may involve treatment for medical or psychological disorders in addition to detoxification from substances. The second stage is intensive treatment, which usually lasts for several months, up to a year. During this period, offenders participate in the substance abatement treatments offered by their program. Other services may be offered to help participants maintain their sobriety, such as education and assistance to find a job (Lutze & van Wormer, 2007; Peters & Murrin, 2000). Some programs require participants to find and keep a job for the duration of treatment (Peters & Murrin, 2000). Status hearings with the judge occur during the intensive treatment phase, and participants may have a case manager in the probation department (Lutze & van Wormer, 2007). The program should end with a period of transition, to help the offender stay sober and continue being pro-social once the period of intense supervision is over (Mitchell et al., 2012; Peters & Murrin, 2000).

Drug court treatment should be individualized as much as possible, to address the specific needs of each offender (Drug Courts Program Office, 1997; Lutze & van Wormer, 2007). Every participant will have somewhat different needs and will respond differently to various types of treatment. Additionally, offenders should be chosen to participate in drug courts based on the risk principle (Marlowe et al., 2006). The risk principle states that only moderate and high-risk offenders should be referred to treatment; low-risk offenders can be harmed by intensive treatment efforts (Andrews & Bonta, 2010; Lutze & van Wormer, 2007). Finally, as discussed above, any barriers to treatment should be addressed to give participants the best chance of success (Lutze & van Wormer, 2001). These three guidelines are known as the Risk, Need, Responsivity (RNR) model and there is substantial empirical evidence that when the principles of RNR are followed, treatments are more likely to be effective (Andrews & Bonta, 2010).

However, it should also be noted that at least one study found that drug court participants were not always participating in certified or empirically proven treatments. Gottfredson and colleagues (2003) found that half of the participants in the Baltimore drug court were receiving non-certified treatment such as acupuncture. As yet, there is no scientific evidence that acupuncture is an effective treatment for substance abuse or crime.

Monitoring Compliance

In addition to frequent hearings, drug court participants are required to submit to frequent urinalysis. The Department of Justice’s Drug Courts Program Office (1997) recommends testing every two weeks for the first few months of treatment. The tests should be randomly scheduled, so that offenders are not able to prepare for them (Marlowe et al., 2006). The Drug Courts Program Office (1997) recommends that the court should make allowances for the fact that early relapses are common in substance use abatement programs, meaning that the response should be more encouraging than punishing, especially if the offender has passed urine screens in the past.

Approximately half of drug court participants complete the full course of treatment (Mitchell et al., 2012; Turner et al., 2002). Most drug courts require participants to remain sober for a certain length of time before they can graduate, ranging from 14 weeks to six months (Marlowe et al., 2006). Participants who were required to take more drug tests each month were more likely to stay in treatment and to fulfill the conditions of the drug court (Turner et al., 2002), which is consistent with other findings that the most effective drug courts use frequent drug testing in combination with evidence-based therapies (Drug Courts Program Office, 1997; Goldkamp et al., 2001; Lowenkamp et al., 2005).

Research on Effectiveness

The Drug Courts Program Office (1997) recommends that all drug courts should include a method of data collection and storage in their design. Data should be collected on participant demographics and program compliance, as well as their future arrests and convictions after graduation. Participants should be followed for as long as possible after program completion, preferably several years. This data can then be used to assess how effective the drug court is in preventing recidivism and relapse. The Drug Courts Program Office also recommends that drug courts bring in an outside researcher with expertise on rehabilitation to facilitate the design and implementation of the data collection and analysis.

In the first decade of the 21 st Century, many studies of drug courts were conducted. Some used a retrospective design, collecting data on drug court graduates and then checking official records for arrests and substance use since they completed the program. Others used quasi-experimental designs, with current drug court participants and comparison groups who matched the characteristics of the treatment group as much as possible. In evaluating the effectiveness of drug courts, it is important to consider the strengths and weaknesses of this research as well as the findings.

Reducing Recidivism

The main goal of any rehabilitation and treatment program in the criminal justice system is to reduce recidivism. Most of the available studies found that drug court participation had at least a small effect on preventing recidivism. A meta-analysis found that, on average, drug courts reduced recidivism by 7.5% (Lowenkamp et al., 2005). Another study found that the recidivism rate for drug court participants was 45% compared to 55% for non-participants (Mitchell et al., 2012). Drug court participants have been found to be arrested and booked fewer times than their peers and to have longer times to recidivism after treatment. In one study, 66% of drug court graduates were rearrested during a two-year follow-up – significantly fewer than the 81% of non-participants (Gottfredson et al., 2003). The same study found that drug court graduates were arrested an average of 1.6 times compared to 2.3 for non-participants. Over a 30-month follow-up, drug court participants were more likely to be employed and less likely to be arrested than non-participants (Peters & Murrin, 2000). Graduates also tend to have shorter periods of incarceration for subsequent offenses (Brown, 2011; Carey & Finnegan, 2004).

The comparison of drug court graduates to non-participants without consideration of offenders who enter a drug court but do not complete the treatment is a methodological weakness. It ignores any confounding factors that may have predisposed the graduates to be more successful, such as personality or life history. A randomized study design, in which qualified candidates are randomly selected for the treatment and control groups, would control for these external factors and provide additional support for the finding that drug courts are effective.

Interestingly, most studies found that the difference in recidivism rate for drug court participants compared to non-participants increased over time. That is, the longer the follow-up period for drug court graduates, the lower their rate of recidivism becomes compared to non-participants. Therefore, it is important to continue to collect follow-up data for as long as possible. The full extent of recidivism reduction seems to be realized around three years after program completion (Goldkamp et al., 2001; Turner et al., 2002). A true experiment with a longitudinal design could help add weight to these findings.

Reducing Substance Use

Like the recidivism results above, drug courts to appear to be effective in preventing further substance abuse. Drug court participants demonstrate lower rates of substance use after program completion than comparison groups (Peters & Murrin, 2000; Turner et al., 2002). They also require shorter periods of treatment if they do relapse (Carey & Finnegan, 2004). These improvements also appear to last for several years after program completion. Additionally, drug courts have better retention rates than other types of treatment offered to offenders – 60% compared to 35% (Peters & Murrin, 2000). However, it must be noted again that there is often an element of bias when selecting offenders for participation in a drug court, and that those who finish the program may systematically differ from those who do not.

Reducing Costs

Several studies have examined the costs of drug courts and whether they save the criminal justice system money in the long-term. A 2004 study of the Multnomah County, OR drug court determined that for each participant the county saved $1,442 compared to “business as usual” (Carey & Finnegan, 2004). “Business as usual” means the typical court and prison process that most offenders experience in the United States. The study included the costs of arrest, booking, time in court, jail and prison, treatment, and probation services, as well as material costs. Specifically, in the drug court model the public defenders, law enforcement, and probation departments saved money compared to business as usual. The prosecutors, courts, and treatment services spent more on drug court participants than business as usual, but there was a net gain for the county.

More recently, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (2016) estimated that it costs approximately $5,000 to treat adults with the drug court model and $2,226 to treat juveniles. These costs are balanced by savings, which increase over time if the offender remains substance free and does not recidivate. For adults, after ten years of non-offending and non-using, the savings increase to $12,000 a year over the cost of incarceration. For juveniles, the savings are slightly less per year – about $5,000 after ten years – but will accumulate for a longer period.

The costs to treat an offender in a drug court setting will depend on the location of the court, as will the actual amount saved compared to typical incarceration. Costs of incarceration vary widely between states and depend on such factors as medical and mental health treatments required, programming offered in the prison, and whether the inmate spends time in solitary confinement or not. However, it does seem that drug courts are significantly cheaper than incarceration regardless of the location. Additionally, the total lifetime savings per drug court participant will depend on whether they truly stay out of the system for the rest of their lives. Findings that drug court graduates have shorter terms of both treatment and incarceration for subsequent offenses suggest that it is still overall cheaper for the system even if they do recidivate (Brown, 2011; Carey & Finnegan, 2004). These savings could be increased by finding a way to help more eligible offenders succeed in drug court treatment.

Factors that Influence Effectiveness

Several studies of drug court effectiveness identified the factors that contribute to success. In general, participants who complete the program in less than one-year have better outcomes than those who remain in treatment for a longer period (Lowenkamp et al. 2005). This is likely because additional time in treatment is due to frequent relapses and perhaps to interrupting treatment with jail time for non-compliance. Outpatient programs tend to be more effective than inpatient programs, which is true of other types of treatment as well (Lowenkamp et al., 2005). Younger, white, female participants with moderate levels of addiction tended to have better outcomes than older, male, minority participants with severe addictions (Lowenkamp et al. 2005; Lutze & van Wormer, 2007; Peters & Murrin, 2000; Roman, Townsend, & Bhati, 2003). However, drug courts in which most participants had prior criminal records performed better than those with all first-time offenders. This follows the risk principle, which states that high and moderate risk offenders have better treatment outcomes, suggesting that first time offenders present a low-level of risk and a higher likelihood of recidivism after treatment (Marlowe et al., 2006).

Smaller drug courts tended to have more successful graduates than larger ones (Roman et al., 2003), likely due to less severe addictions to less serious drugs and to the ability for the judge to form a better relationship with individual offenders (Lutze & van Wormer, 2007). Additionally, participants who completed at least 50% of their treatment, attended at least 30% of their sessions, and had eight or more status hearings had better long-term outcomes than participants who completed less of the program (Goldkamp et al. 2001). More frequent status hearings (more than two a month) may also contribute to better outcomes (Mitchell et al., 2012). One study found that drug courts had better long-term outcomes than similar, but less rigorous, programs largely due to careful selection criteria, which does introduce bias into the efficacy studies, and the use of ancillary services (Evans et al., 2014). Finally, the most effective results were seen in programs with an appropriate treatment intensity, meaning enough sessions offered for a sufficient period, and those with the best fidelity to their design (Lutze & van Wormer, 2007; Mitchel et al., 2012).

Conclusion: Are Drug Courts Effective?

Drug courts are an attempt to rehabilitate substance-involved offenders while keeping them out of prison. They are based on a psychosocial view of crime as something that can be treated, and often pair medical treatment with behavioral therapy. The goals of drug courts are to reduce recidivism, reduce substance use, reduce the costs of drug-involved crimes, and decrease prison crowding. Based on several retrospective and quasi-experimental studies, it appears that drug courts are accomplishing most of their goals. Graduates have lower rates of recidivism and substance use, and the treatment is far more cost effective than incarceration. Drug courts also tend to enjoy support from the communities in which they are implemented (Lowenkamp et al., 2005).

However, it should also be noted that most studies on the effectiveness of drug courts point out that the methodology used is somewhat weak (Brown, 2011; Mitchel et al., 2012). Most of the studies tend to be retrospective and to have some difficulty finding accurate records for all past drug court participants. Similarly, using a comparison group of ineligible offenders may not provide the best results because there may be a systematic difference between eligible and ineligible offenders that would bias the study (Brown, 2011). This does not necessarily suggest that results are inaccurate, but that the drug courts may be less effective than proponents believe. Drug courts have now been operating in some areas for over 20 years, meaning it should now be possible to assess whether there is any difference in recidivism and substance use, though more rigorous methodology, including randomized studies, is needed.

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Lutze, F. E., & Van Wormer, J. G. (2007). The nexus between drug and alcohol treatment program integrity and drug court effectiveness: Policy recommendations for pursuing success. Criminal Justice Policy Review , 18 (3), 226-245.

Marlowe, D. B., Festinger, D. S., Lee, P. A., Dugosh, K. L., & Benasutti, K. M. (2006). Matching judicial supervision to clients’ risk status in drug court. Crime & Delinquency , 52 (1), 52-76.

Mitchell, O., Wilson, D. B., Eggers, A., & MacKenzie, D. L. (2012). Assessing the effectiveness of drug courts on recidivism: A meta-analytic review of traditional and non-traditional drug courts. Journal of Criminal Justice , 40 (1), 60-71.

New CASA report finds: 65% of all U.S. inmates meet medical criteria for substance abuse addiction. Only 11% receive any treatment. (2010, February 26). Retrieved from: http://www.centeronaddiction.org/newsroom/press-releases/2010-behind-bars-II

Peters, R. H., & Murrin, M. R. (2000). Effectiveness of treatment-based drug courts in reducing criminal recidivism. Criminal justice and behavior , 27 (1), 72-96.

Roman, J., Townsend, W., & Bhati, A. S. (2003). Recidivism rates for drug court graduates: nationally based estimates. The Urban Institute.

Turner, S., Longshore, D., Wenzel, S., Deschenes, E., Greenwood, P., Fain, T., Harrell, A., Morral, A., Taxman, F., Iguchi, M., & Greene, J. (2002). A decade of drug treatment court research. Substance Use & Misuse , 37 (12-13), 1489-1527.

Washington State Institute for Public Policy. (2016, December). Drug courts: Adult criminal justice. Retrieved from: http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/BenefitCost/Program/14

Washington State Institute for Public Policy. (2016, December). Drug courts: Juvenile justice. Retrieved from: http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/BenefitCost/Program/44

Welsh, W. N., & Harris, P. W. (2010). Criminal Justice Policy and Planning (4 th Ed.) . New York, NY: Routledge.

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Project 2025 partners celebrate Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity

Written by Jack Wheatley , Jacina Hollins-Borges & Sophie Lawton

Published 07/02/24 2:47 PM EDT

Project 2025 partners are taking a victory lap after the Supreme Court’s July 1 decision in Trump v. United States , which ruled that “former President Donald Trump is entitled to immunity from federal prosecution for official actions he took while in office, a landmark decision at the height of an election season that further delays the start of his criminal trial in Washington, D.C.”

Project 2025 is a comprehensive transition plan to guide a potential second Trump administration with policy proposals and staffing recommendations led by right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation, which joined other members of the project’s advisory board in celebrating the ruling on presidential immunity as a win for Trump and a defeat for Democrats. Last week, Project 2025 partners also praised the Supreme Court decision overturning Chevron deference in a ruling that will restrict federal agencies' regulatory abilities and make it easier for corporations to challenge environmental protections, climate action, and rules that protect workers or regulate drugs and financial practices, among other issues..

On former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts marked the decision as “vital,” and claimed, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room , 7/2/24 ]
Heritage senior legal fellow Sarah Parshall Perry posted that the Trump ruling is “the one the nation waited for. Never in American history has the high court weighed in on the scope of criminal immunity for presidents over their conduct in office. Today's decision was historic.” She added that “the presumption of immunity for certain official acts applies to all occupants of the Oval Office. Politicizing the Justice system against a president sets a dangerous precedent, and SCOTUS put some much-needed guardrails in place today.” [Twitter/X, 4/1/24 ]
The American Center for Law and Justice posted, “BREAKING: In a major ruling, the Supreme Court has agreed with our amicus brief that Presidents are entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts in office.” [Twitter/X, 7/1/24 ]
Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, president of America First Legal, wrote that the decision is “another setback for the Democrat Party’s illegal and unconstitutional crusade to outlaw dissent, jail the opposition leader, impose authoritarian rule, replace democracy with the deep state and liberty with leftwing oligarchy.” [Twitter/X, 7/1/24 ]
The Center for Renewing America posted a video of senior fellow Mark Paoletta reacting to the decision on Newsmax, saying, “It’s a great day for President Trump… it’s an even better day for the U.S. Constitution." [Twitter/X, 7/2/24 ]
The Center for Renewing America’s official statement said the ruling also “confirms that immunity” for senior fellow Jeff Clark, who was indicted alongside Trump for efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. CRA wrote: “We have vigorously insisted from the very beginning that Mr. Clark is entitled to immunity from prosecution and from bar discipline. The Supreme Court’s decision today confirms that immunity in resounding and unmistakable terms. Now the Fulton County District Attorney and the D.C. Bar Disciplinary Process must immediately dismiss all charges against Clark and bring their wrongful prosecutions of him to an end.” [PBS NewsHour, 8/8/23 ; Twitter/X, 7/1/24 ]
Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots wrote, “Today’s SCOTUS ruling is another win for former President Trump, and a big defeat for the Democrats who have been weaponizing the government against Trump to interfere in this year’s election.” She thanked the Supreme Court “for recognizing the importance of presidential immunity” and added, “This is why your vote is so important.” [Twitter/X, 7/1/24 ]
Family Research Council’s Washington Watch podcast hosted Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) and Liberty University’s Phill Kline to celebrate the immunity decision. Burlison said, “The court, I felt like, made a very common-sense ruling that the president has immunity when performing the duties of his office. It just so happens that some of those duties include making sure that there’s no voter fraud that occurred in the previous election.” Kline said the Supreme Court concluded “that the president, in the exercise of his constitutional and statutory responsibilities, needs to be immune from zealous or overreaching oversight by the other branches of government, including that of Congress and even the courts, as well as a prosecutor who might take a law and try to weaponize it against the president to try to deter certain behavior.” [Family Research Council, Washington Watch , 7/1/24 , 7/1/24 ]

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Supreme Court Ruling Overturning Chevron Could 'Paralyze' Health Policy Making: Experts

Alicia Ault

July 01, 2024

Experts say the US Supreme Court's ruling Friday to overturn the decades-old "Chevron doctrine" could severely restrict the ability of federal agencies to regulate all aspects of health care.

Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, wrote on X , "my worry is that it will paralyze policymaking in health care and other areas," because "Congress will try to fill in more details, making it harder to pass legislation." He also wrote that federal agencies "will become very cautious in using their regulatory authority."

In their 6-3 opinion reversing the "Chevron doctrine" — which has been followed since a 1984 Court opinion — the Justices said that the judiciary should no longer have to defer to federal agency interpretations of laws. Existing federal law "requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority," said the Court, in stating why Chevron should be overruled.

Writing for the majority in the combined cases — Relentless v Department of Commerce and Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo — Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. wrote that "agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do."

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan said the decision was a judicial power grab and would result in a "jolt to the legal system." She was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The opinion will have many repercussions, said lawyer and Supreme Court watcher Amy Howe. The Chevron ruling has been "one of the most important rulings on federal administrative law, cited by federal courts more than 18,000 times," she wrote on her blog .

For example, without the longstanding deference to agencies under Chevron, health care providers may have more opportunities to challenge how federal officials set Medicare reimbursement for hospital procedures or prescription drugs, Baker Donelson health care attorneys McKenna Cloud and Thomas Barnard wrote in an analysis.

Seventeen health organizations issued a joint statement signaling their disappointment.

"We anticipate that today's ruling will cause significant disruption to publicly funded health insurance programs, to the stability of this country's healthcare and food and drug review systems, and to the health and well-being of the patients and consumers we serve," wrote the organizations, which included American Academy of Pediatrics, American Cancer Society, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, ALS Association, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, American Thoracic Society, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Child Neurology Foundation, Epilepsy Foundation, Muscular Dystrophy Association, National Health Law Program, Physicians for Social Responsibility, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and Truth Initiative.

"It's much harder for agencies to exercise power without some power to interpret statues. This is big," wrote Berkeley Law Professor Orin Kerr on X .

A New, Uncertain Landscape for Health Care

In the original Chevron case, the Court ruled that federal agencies had relevant expertise and should be given deference in resolving ambiguities that Congress had not spelled out in legislation.

In Relentless and Loper Bright , the plaintiffs argued that federal agencies overstepped their authority by issuing a rule that required commercial fishing vessels to pay for professional observers to monitor their catch.

In a statement after Friday's ruling , the Relentless plaintiffs' attorneys said that the decision "will recalibrate the balance of power between agencies and courts," and "make it harder for those agencies to adopt regulatory programs that exceed the authority conferred on them by Congress."

Some predicted chaos in the wake of the ruling.

"Overturning Chevron could invite legal challenges to any and all agency determinations of ambiguous statutes by any stakeholder, leaving individual courts with the impractical task of determining the 'correct' meaning of statutes without the benefit of requisite expertise, practical experience, or public engagement," wrote Sahil Agrawal, MD, PhD, Joseph S. Ross, MD, and Reshma Ramachandran, MD, in JAMA in an opinion piece in March that considered the ramifications of overturning Chevron.

"The spillover effects for medicine and public health, in turn, will be consequential," they wrote.

In an analysis published in April , the Kaiser Family Foundation noted many potential ramifications on patient and consumer protections in the health insurance market. For instance, courts could vacate current rules governing protections under the Affordable Care Act, including that health plans offer a range of free preventive health services, such as breast, cervical, colon, and lung cancer screening.

Congressional, White House Reaction

Many legal observers said the ruling will have the effect of requiring Congress to write ever-more dense and exacting legislation to prevent agencies from interpreting any gaps.

Some members of Congress welcomed the decision.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) said in a statement , "The Constitution vests Congress with the sole authority to make law," adding, "the Supreme Court made it clear today that our system of government leaves no room for an unelected bureaucracy to co-opt this authority for itself.

In a post on X , Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) accused the Court of siding with "special interests and giant corporations." Added Schumer, "Their headlong rush to overturn 40 years of precedent and impose their own radical views is appalling."

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that "While this decision undermines the ability of federal agencies to use their expertise as Congress intended to make government work for the people, the Biden-Harris Administration will not relent in our efforts to protect and serve every American."

Alicia Ault is a Saint Petersburg, Florida-based freelance journalist whose work has appeared in publications including JAMA and Smithsonian.com. You can find her on X @aliciaault.

Send comments and news tips to [email protected] .

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7 in 10 Americans think Supreme Court justices put ideology over impartiality: AP-NORC poll

Members of the Supreme Court sit for a group portrait at the Supreme Court building in Washington, Oct. 7, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A solid majority of Americans say Supreme Court justices are more likely to be guided by their own ideology rather than serving as neutral arbiters of government authority, a new poll finds, as the high court is poised to rule on major cases involving former President Donald Trump and other divisive issues.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 7 in 10 Americans think the high court’s justices are more influenced by ideology, while only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults think the justices are more likely to provide an independent check on other branches of government by being fair and impartial.

The poll reflects the continued erosion of confidence in the Supreme Court, which enjoyed broader trust as recently as a decade ago. It underscores the challenge faced by the nine justices — six appointed by Republican presidents and three by Democrats — of being seen as something other than just another element of Washington’s hyper-partisanship.

The justices are expected to decide soon whether Trump is immune from criminal charges over his efforts to overturn his 2020 reelection defeat, but the poll suggests that many Americans are already uneasy about the justices’ ability to rule impartially.

“It’s very political. There’s no question about that,” said Jeff Weddell, a 67-year-old automotive technology sales representative from Macomb County, in presidential swing-state Michigan.

“The court’s decision-making is so polluted,” said Weddell, a political independent who plans to vote for Trump in November. “No matter what they say on President Trump’s immunity, this will be politically motivated.”

Confidence in the Supreme Court remains low. The poll of 1,088 adults found that 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they have hardly any confidence in the people running the Supreme Court, in line with an AP-NORC poll from October . As recently as early 2022, before the high-profile ruling that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, an AP-NORC poll found that only around one-quarter of Americans lacked confidence in the justices.

And although the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has handed down some historic victories for Republican policy priorities over the past few years, rank-and-file Republicans aren’t giving the justices a ringing endorsement.

It’s been two years since the court’s ruling on abortion rights. Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — Trump nominees confirmed by a Republican Senate — were part of the majority that overturned the near-50-year abortion-rights precedent established in Roe v. Wade.

This year’s term, with a dozen cases still undecided , has already seen some major rulings. Earlier in June, the Supreme Court unanimously preserved access to the pharmaceutical drug mifepristone, a medication used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. last year. The same week, the court struck down a Trump-era gun restriction , a ban on rapid-fire gun accessories known as bump stocks, a win for gun-rights advocates.

Only about half of Republicans have a great deal or a moderate amount of confidence in the court’s handling of important issues, including gun policy, abortion, elections and voting, and presidential power and immunity, according to the new poll.

“I don’t have a lot of faith in the Supreme Court. And that’s unfortunate because that’s the final say-so, the final check and balance on our three-branch government,” said Matt Rogers, a 37-year-old Republican from Knoxville, Tennessee.

Other Republicans share that mistrust, although the court’s current makeup is more conservative than any court in modern history. They are also split on whether the justices are more driven by personal ideology or impartiality, with about half of Republicans saying the justices are more likely to shape the law to fit their own ideology, and another half saying they are likelier to be an independent check on their co-equal branches.

“I think they are getting influenced and pressured by a lot of people and a lot of entities on the left,” said Rogers, a health and wellness trainer who plans to vote for Trump a third time this year. “Let’s be honest. It’s anything to crucify Trump.”

Some Republicans have less confidence in the court’s handling of specific issues than others. The poll found, for instance, that about 6 in 10 Republican women have little to no confidence in the court’s handling of presidential power and immunity, compared to 45% of Republican men.

Janette Majors, a Republican from Ridgefield, Washington, says it’s only natural for a justice to reflect the ideology of the president who nominated them.

But episodes outside the Supreme Court chambers have made her less confident in the people running the court.

“What you hear about Clarence Thomas, taking trips paid for by rich people, makes me think there are some individuals there that don’t sound like I should trust them,” Majors said, referring unprompted to reports that Thomas has for years received undisclosed expensive gifts, including travel, from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.

Democrats and independents are even more skeptical of the court’s neutrality, according to the poll.

About 8 in 10 Democrats — and about 7 in 10 independents — say the justices are more likely to shape the law to fit their own ideology. A similar share has little or no confidence at all in the court’s handling of abortion, gun policy and presidential power and immunity.

Michigan Democrat Andie Near noticed that the court seemed to become a political tool in 2016, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to allow hearings on Democratic President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

McConnell quickly allowed hearings after Trump nominated Gorsuch within 10 days of taking office in 2017.

“I had thought the court, though maybe skewing left or right, was serving the whole body of the country,” the 42-year-old museum registrar from Holland, Michigan, said. “That’s when it brought to high relief that the Supreme Court is being used to skew the political environment we live in, and it’s only gotten worse.”

The poll of 1,088 adults was conducted June 20-24, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

COMMENTS

Systematic review of the impact of adult drug treatment courts
Introduction. Drug treatment courts are a form of therapeutic jurisprudence falling under the more general modern rubric of "problem-solving courts" and have been called the most significant criminal justice initiative of the 20 th century. 1 The basic philosophy behind problem-solving courts, drug treatment courts included, is that individuals committing crime often suffer from illness or ...
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Drug court participants (DCP) often have needs around their mental health, employment, education, problem-solving skills, anti-social cognitions, family conflict, parenting, and medical care and some drug courts have added these services either in-house or through community referrals (Green & Rempel, 2012; National Research Council, 2014 ...
Outcome Effects on Recidivism Among Drug Court Participants
Decades ago, drug courts were established to reduce recidivism rates for substance-involved offenders who traditionally would have been sentenced to conventional probation supervision (General Accounting Office, 1997).The core premise of these specialized courts was to focus on chemical dependency issues among habitual offenders beyond that offered through traditional probation (General ...
Drug Courts and the 'Responsibility without Blame' Approach
Drug Courts (DCs) are a growing phenomenon in the United States. The first one appeared in 1989 in Florida, and by 2021, there were more than 3500 across the country, divided between several specialties (Juvenile Drug Courts, Family Drug Courts, Veterans Treatment Courts, etc.). 1 One possible explanation of this spectacular growth may be the toll of the ongoing opioid epidemic: the odds of ...
The effect of drug treatment court on recidivism: a comparison with
1 The Milwaukee Drug Treatment Court only offering services to moderate-to-high risk individuals is not unique among drug courts. Research has found that mixing low-risk with high-risk offenders can be detrimental to those who are low risk, potentially due to socialization, so many courts do not accept low risk clients or treat them on an individual basis or separately stratified groups ...
PDF Research on Drug Courts: a Critical Review
For the 102 individuals going through the Riverside County (CA) drug court in one year, the estimated total annual savings is $2,047,608 ($2,501,958 in jail/prison/parole costs averted, versus a program cost of $310,710 for one year of treatment and $143,640 in court processing costs).
The Impact of Drug Treatment Courts on Recovery: A Systematic Review
Abstract. Introduction. Earlier reviews regarding the effectiveness of Drug Treatment Courts (DTCs) reported a reduction in reoffending and substance use. Although substance users suffer from other difficulties than drug use and judicial issues, none of these reviews focused on outcomes or effects of DTCs on drug-related life domains, such as ...
Taking Stock of Drug Courts: Do They Work?
Research demonstrates that judges have a large impact on how their drug court operates, and thus service delivery can be punctuated or hampered based on judicial knowledge of drug courts and substance abuse treatment generally (Carey et al., Citation 2012; Jones, Citation 2013; Zweig, Lindquist, Downey, Roman, & Rossman, Citation 2012). This ...
Drug Treatment Courts: A Quantitative Review of Study and Treatment
Paper presented at the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, National Training Conference, Las Vegas, NV. Google Scholar. Terry W. C. III. (1995). ... Her areas of research include drug treatment courts, community supervision, aboriginal offenders, and restorative justice. Currently, Ms. Gutierrez is assessing the role of ...
Drug Court Review
Fall 2023. This volume of the Drug Court Review features articles that highlight the importance of participants "being heard" in treatment courts, valuing them as individuals and allowing their experiences to inform how we serve them. Published: 2023-09-13.
Drug courts: Conceptual foundation, empirical findings, and policy
[1] Although the research in this article is based on the widespread empirical results that have been generated in conjunction with the US drug court experience over the past two decades, findings are in most cases likewise relevant to similar initiatives in other countries without benefit of an extensive empirical foundation on which to rely in shaping their developmental drug court initiatives.
PDF Divining Drug Court Success: Characteristics Predicting Graduation and
Sample. the between The descriptive Alabama Table 1. The 2018 sample Drug and 2020, includes statistics sample included 3062 Court individuals accepted into. drug of choice included: marijuana (34.2%), (6.5%). Reported or and GED and Caucasian reported (42.2%), or intent employed (30.6%), had had transportation.
Procedural Due Process, Drug Courts, and Loss of Liberty Sanctions
As a condition of participating in drug court, offenders agree to be bound by a system of sanctions imposed by the court in response to certain proscribed behaviors. ... University of Denver Sturm College of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series. Subscribe to this free journal for more curated articles on this topic FOLLOWERS. 4,432. PAPERS ...
Overview of Drug Courts
The Adult Drug Court Research to Practice Initiative promotes the dissemination of emerging research on drug courts. Drug courts are specialized court docket programs that target criminal defendants, juveniles who have been convicted of a drug offense, and parents with pending child welfare cases who have alcohol and other drug dependency ...
PDF Drug Courts: Background, Effectiveness, and Policy Issues for Congress
Drug courts are specialized court dockets, or parts of judges' calendars of cases awaiting action in court, that generally focus on cases involving nonviolent offenders with substance-abuse problems.1 Drug court programs generally include intensive court supervision, drug testing, and substance-abuse treatment.
Research on drug courts: a critical review 2001 update
Journal of psychoactive drugs. 2001. TLDR. A review of California drug court evaluations through January 2000 conducted as part of an evaluation of the Drug Court Partnership Program finds that drug court participants may experience reduced rearrest rates by 11% to 14% compared to nonparticipants. Expand.
How Drug Courts Fall Short: A New Report Investigates this ...
The SSRC's Drugs, Security and Democracy program has recently released a report titled Drug Courts in the Americas.Here, program manager Cleia Noia provides an overview of the report's findings and recommendations. In discussing how drug courts became the preferred alternative to incarceration not just in the United States but Latin America and the Caribbean, she highlights their ...
PDF Issues and Practices Justice and Treatment Innovation: The Drug Court
• Research that confirmed the link between drugs and crime. II The research and development program that resulted in the creation of police body armor that has meant the ... Innovation: The Drug Court Movement A Working Paper of the First National Drug Court Conference, Decenlber 1993 -John S. Goldkamp u\!CJRS DEC 5 1994 ACQUISITiONS
Outcome Effects on Recidivism Among Drug Court Participants
The current study adds to the existing drug court literature by examining the impact four drug court outcomes (i.e., case dismissal, probation, jail, and prison) have on reoffending. We analyzed the case records of 824 drug court participants to determine the influence criminal sanctions have on post-program reoffending.
Research on Drug Courts: A Critical Review
In addition, drug courts were quite successful in bridging the gap between the court and the treatment-public health systems and spurring greater cooperation among the various agencies and personnel within the criminal justice system. Gaps in knowledge about drug courts that future research should address are identified. 30 references and 1 table
Adult Drug Court Research to Practice (R2P) Initiative
The Bureau of Justice Assistance and the National Institute of Justice funded drug court experts at the National Center for State Courts and American University to produce a series of webinars, webcasts and other materials to promote timely dissemination of research on addiction, substance abuse treatment, and drug court programming. Please visit the National Drug Court Resource Center for ...
Treating Substance Use Disorders in the Criminal Justice System
Introduction. The number of individuals involved in the US criminal justice system (CJS) is among the highest in the developed world. In 2011, there were an estimated 12.4 million arrests, including 1.5 million for drug offenses (possession or sale) [].Nearly 4 million adults are under probation supervision (one out of every 60 adults in the USA) and 854,000 on parole [].
Are Drug Courts Effective? Drug Court Success Rate Statistics
This paper will review the current research on drug court effectiveness to determine whether these courts meet the dual goals of saving money while lowering rates of recidivism and substance use. ... Research on Effectiveness. The Drug Courts Program Office (1997) recommends that all drug courts should include a method of data collection and ...
Drug Courts Research Papers
This essay explores why drug courts fail to provide the most medically advanced forms of drug addiction treatment. Reasons include the following: a cultural preference for abstinence-only treatments; belief that addiction medication is ″immoral″; hyperbolic fear of the illegal diversion of medication; cultural loyalty to twelve-step groups ...
Project 2025 partners celebrate Supreme Court ruling on presidential
Project 2025 partners are taking a victory lap after the Supreme Court's July 1 decision in Trump v. United States, which ruled that "former President Donald Trump is entitled to immunity from ...
Supreme Court's Chevron Doctrine Ruling Could Limit FDA ...
Pictured: U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC/iStock, Mindaugas Dulinskas The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday in a 6-3 vote overturned the decades-old Chevron deference doctrine, which could have far-reaching implications for the FDA and its regulatory functions.. The Chevron deference, dating back to 1984, requires courts to defer to federal agencies and their interpretation of statutes as long ...
SC Ruling Could 'Paralyze' Health Regulation: Experts
Experts say the US Supreme Court's ruling Friday to overturn the decades-old "Chevron doctrine" could severely restrict the ability of federal agencies to regulate all aspects of health care ...
Court Rules Against Johnson & Johnson In Talcum Powder Cancer ...
The court found that Moline's research was neither fraudulent nor libelous, reaffirming her free speech rights under the First Amendment. U.S. District Judge Georgette Castner ruled that Moline ...
Supreme Court Makes More Work for Crime Labs in Arizona Drug Case
Here's the kicker: At the time, some commentators argued that Dookhan's misconduct might represent fallout from a 2009 Supreme Court ruling that when a forensic analyst performs tests that are ...
7 in 10 think Supreme Court justices prioritize ideology: AP poll
Earlier in June, the Supreme Court unanimously preserved access to the pharmaceutical drug mifepristone, a medication used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. last year. The same week, the court struck down a Trump-era gun restriction, a ban on rapid-fire gun accessories known as bump stocks, a win for gun-rights advocates.

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Procedural Due Process, Drug Courts, and Loss of Liberty Sanctions

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Prison-based Treatment

Treatment in Community-based Corrections

Drug Courts

Key Issues in Research and Practice

Under-utilization of MAT

Principles of Effective Treatment for Offenders

Acknowledgments

Are Drug Courts Effective? Drug Court Success Rate Statistics

History and Design of Drug Courts

Target Population

Goals and Objectives

The Role of Court Personnel

Evidence-Based Treatment Methods

Monitoring Compliance

Research on Effectiveness

Reducing Recidivism

Reducing Substance Use

Reducing Costs

Factors that Influence Effectiveness

Conclusion: Are Drug Courts Effective?

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Evidence-Based Professionals' Monthly - July 2024

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Evidence-Based Professionals' Monthly - March 2024

Evidence-Based Professionals' Monthly - April 2024

Quarterly for Evidence-Based Professionals - Volume 8, Number 3

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Drug Courts

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