NCJ Number
152400
Date Published
1994
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This report describes five drug treatment programs for female offenders in Santa Clara County, California, and gives an overview of the county's treatment system and clients served.
Abstract
The county has a population of more than 1.4 million and has experienced sharp increases in felony and misdemeanor drug arrests in recent years. The treatment system consists of a combination of county-operated, nonprofit, for-profit, and hospital-based services. Until a few years ago, few treatment and recovery resources were expressly designed for the criminal justice system population. The programs described in this report following site visits in May 1993 include the Elmwood Women's Deuce Program, the Treatment Alternatives Program, the Women's Relapse Prevention Project, STEPS Program, and Casa Esperanza. Common aspects of these programs include a fairly open admissions policy, a screening and assessment practice that does not include formalized instruments, a wide variety of services and programming, formal and informal linkages with the criminal justice system and other entities, an understanding that relapse does not necessarily mean program or client failure, and aftercare planning. Recovering program staff act as role models in almost all the programs visited. Areas needing improvement include communication among the agencies with authority over the client's activities, the referral system, and availability of information about spaces in programs. Tables