Search

The drug court model assumes that most drug offenders are addicts, and that drug use fuels other criminal activity. As a result, drug court clients must satisfy an intensive regimen of treatment and supervisory obligations. However, research suggests that roughly one third of drug court clients do not have a clinically significant substance use disorder. For these clients, standard drug court services may be ineffective or even contraindicated. Instead, these clients may be best suited for a secondary prevention approach directed at interrupting the acquisition of addictive behaviors. Unfortunately, there are no established secondary prevention packages for adults in criminal justice settings. This article presents a conceptual framework for developing and administering secondary prevention services in drug courts and proposes a platform of prevention techniques that can be tailored in a clinically relevant manner for the sizeable population of drug court clients who are low risk. (Contains 1 figure.)

This article reports outcomes from a program of experimental research evaluating the risk principle in drug courts. Prior studies revealed that participants who were high risk and had (a) antisocial personality disorder or (b) a prior history of drug abuse treatment performed better in drug court when scheduled to attend biweekly judicial status hearings in court. In contrast, participants who were low risk performed equivalently regardless of the court hearings schedule. This study prospectively matches drug court clients to the optimal schedule of court hearings based on an assessment of their risk status and compares outcomes to clients randomly assigned to the standard hearings schedule. Results confirmed that participants who were high risk and matched to biweekly hearings had better during-treatment outcomes than participants assigned to status hearings as usual. These findings provide confirmation of the risk principle in drug courts and yield practical information for enhancing the efficacy and cost-efficiency of drug courts. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)

Graduation rates from drug courts are impressive and are often attributed to the delivered treatments. However, it is unclear whether graduation rates are bolstered by low severity of drug use problems upon entry into drug court. To address this question, this study examined the relationship between baseline substance use severity and graduation rates among 251 drug court clients. Results revealed that participants with subthreshold drug composite scores on the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) were significantly more likely to graduate than those scoring in the mild-to-moderate or severe range. Furthermore, results revealed that participants who provided a drug-negative baseline urine were significantly more likely to graduate than those who provided a drug-positive baseline urine. A binary logistic regression analysis revealed that ASI drug composite score, urine screen, race, and years educated were statistically significant predictors of drug court graduation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]