Adapting judicial supervision to the risk level of drug offenders: Discharge and 6-month outcomes from a prospective matching study

Abstract

This article reports recent findings from a program of experimental research examining the effects of adapting judicial supervision to the risk level of drug-abusing offenders. Prior studies revealed that high-risk participants with (1) antisocial personality disorder or (2) a history of drug abuse treatment performed significantly better in drug court when they were scheduled to attend frequent, bi-weekly judicial status hearings in court. Low-risk participants performed equivalently regardless of the schedule of court hearings. The current study prospectively matched misdemeanor drug court clients to the optimal schedule of court hearings based upon an assessment of their risk status, and compared outcomes to those of clients randomly assigned to the standard schedule of court hearings. Results confirmed that high-risk participants graduated at a higher rate, provided more drug-negative urine specimens at 6 months post-admission, and reported significantly less drug use and alcohol intoxication at 6 months post-admission when they were matched to bi-weekly hearings as compared to the usual schedule of hearings. These findings yield practical information for enhancing the efficacy and cost-efficiency of drug court services. Directions for future research on adaptive programming for drug offenders are discussed.

Targeting dispositions for drug-involved offenders: A field trial of the Risk and Needs Triage (RANT)™

“…The P.O.s were carefully trained on the rationale, item content, administration and scoring procedures for the RANT™ by scientists from the Treatment Research Institute (TRI) and had ongoing access to TRI personnel by phone and e-mail to ask further questions and receive clarification on rating and scoring criteria. No information is available on inter-rater reliability from the present study; however, prior studies using several of the same indices and scoring criteria from the RANT™ yielded greater than 90% exact interrater agreement (Festinger et al, 2002;Marlowe et al, 2006Marlowe et al, , 2007.…”

“…Studies have revealed that low-risk drug offenders performed at least as well, and sometimes better, when they are not required to appear frequently before a judge (Festinger et al, 2002;Marlowe et al, 2006Marlowe et al, , 2007. Instead, the low-risk offenders fared well when they were supervised by clinical case managers who reported on their progress to the judge and requested court hearings only as needed to address poor compliance in treatment.…”

Collaborating for consensus: Considerations for convening Coalition stakeholders to promote a gender-based approach to addressing the health needs of sex workers

“…Specialized court program professionals recognize the centrality of substance abuse treatment but typically use the authority of the court as a motivator to issue rewards and sanctions for compliance/noncompliance (Champney & Silverman, 2011;Marlowe, Festinger, Dugosh, Lee, & Benasutti, 2007;Peters & Murrin, 2000;Wahab, 2005). Additionally, our local research revealed that most sex workers involved in direct street prostitution also have drug involvement (Leon & Ralston, 2010).…”

Adaptive Interventions in Drug Court

“…interventions over the course of treatment (e.g., Marlowe, Festinger, Dugosh, Lee & Benasutti, 2007).…”

“…For example, if a client falls below an effective threshold for engagement in treatment-by, for example, missing a pre-specified number of counseling sessions-he or she might be re-assigned to a motivational enhancement intervention. The term matching is commonly used to describe strategies that tailor treatment to clients' baseline characteristics whereas the term adaptive is commonly used for strategies that re-adjust the interventions over the course of treatment (e.g., Marlowe, Festinger, Dugosh, Lee & Benasutti, 2007).…”