This article reports findings from a clinical trial of a probation case management (PCM) intervention for drug-involved women offenders.
Participants were randomly assigned to PCM (n = 92) or standard probation (n = 91) and monitored for 12 months, using measures of substance abuse, psychiatric symptoms, social support, and service use. Arrest data were collected from administrative data sets. The sample included mostly African American and White women (age M = 34.7, education M = 11.6 years). Cocaine and heroin were the most frequently reported drugs of abuse, and 86 percent reported a history of incarceration; 74 percent had children. Women assigned to both PCM and standard probation showed clinical improvement over time on 7 of 10 measured outcomes; however, PCM group changes were no different than those observed for the standard probation group. These findings suggest that higher levels of case management, drug abuse treatment, and probationary supervision may be required to achieve improved outcomes in this population. (publisher abstract modified)