Effects of Drug Treatment and Supervision on Time to Rearrest Among Drug Treatment Court Participants

• NCJ Number: 201724
• Journal: Journal of Drug Issues Volume: 33 Issue: 2 Dated: Spring 2003 Pages: 385-412
• Author(s): Duren Banks; Denise C. Gottfredson
• Date Published: 2003
• Length: 28 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article focuses on the intensive supervision and drug treatment components of the drug court program.

Abstract

Intensive supervision programs (ISPs) generally emphasize reduced caseloads, close surveillance, urinalysis testing, treatment, and employment, but they are distinguished by their increased contact between the offender and his/her probation officer. Effective drug treatment programs benefit by using the leverage of the criminal justice system to retain offenders. Past research has shown that drug courts are reaching their target offenders and that program participants are re-arrested at a lower or equivalent rate than comparison offenders. However, few analyses have been conducted to test the effects of different drug court elements. It is important to determine whether one of the two main components of the drug court, intensive supervision or drug treatment, is more effective at preventing failure, or whether the combination of both is necessary to observe a decreased risk of failure. The original evaluation of the drug treatment court randomly assigned offenders to drug court and control samples and found that the drug court sample had a significantly lower risk of failure during the 2 year follow-up period. This study evaluated the risk of failure for the drug court sample only. The results show that attending treatment significantly decreased the risk of failure, while receiving supervision did not. Offenders that received both supervision and treatment had the longest survival times, but not significantly longer than those that received treatment only. Drug court practitioners may want to focus more on the treatment component to have a greater impact on recidivism. Getting offenders into treatment quickly could prevent the high failure rate observed during the first few months these offenders were free in the community. 4 figures, 6 tables, 48 references