NCJ Number
203278
Date Published
2003
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This report summarizes the impact of Great Britain’s Drug Treatment and Testing Orders (DTTO's) on the reconviction rates 2 years after the orders were instituted.
Abstract
Under the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998, the Drug Treatment and Testing Orders (DTTO's) was introduced as a new community sentence, in order to respond to the growing evidence of links between problem drug use and persistent acquisitive offending. The DTTO was originally piloted in Croydon, Cloucestershire, and Liverpool in 1998. This report summarizes the impact of the order on reconviction rates 2 years after the start of the order. The analysis consists of a 2 year reconviction study for those offenders who were sentenced to a DTTO in the three pilot locations. Overall, the reconviction rate in the three pilot sites was high. However, the rate is comparable to those found in other studies of drug using offenders on community penalties and masks a number of important differences and encouraging signs. Highlights from the findings include: (1) overall 2 year reconviction rates were 80 percent for the 174 DTTO offenders; (2) a statistically significant difference in reconviction rates between those whose orders were revoked (91 percent) and those who completed their orders (53 percent); (3) the DTTO sample had more serious criminal histories and was older than a comparison sample sentenced to probation orders; (4) those serving probation orders had significantly higher reconviction rates (91 percent) and had a higher average number of convictions in the year after the order than they did in the previous year; (5) completion rates for DTTO's were low; (6) those who completed their orders reduced their annual conviction rate to levels well below those of the previous 5 years; and (7) the challenge facing DTTO's is to improve retention rates. Tables