Criminal Justice and the Drug Abusing Offender: Policy Issues of Coerced Treatment

• NCJ Number: 132138
• Author(s): M D Anglin, Y-I Hser
• Date Published: January 1991
• Length: 22 pages
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored

Annotation

This paper describes the major treatment approaches and reports on evaluations of their effectiveness, especially efforts directed toward substance-abusing offenders such as arrestees, probationers, inmates, and parolees.

Abstract

The overview on drug abuse treatment covers detoxification, methadone maintenance, therapeutic communities, and outpatient drug-free treatment. The programs described are the California Civil Addict Program, the TASC (Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime) Program, and the criminal justice system utilization of community-based treatment. The effectiveness of community-based and corrections-based treatment in effecting behavioral changes to reduce drug demand are reported. The characteristics of successful intervention programs are described, and an ideal model is proposed for better integrating community treatment and criminal justice interventions efforts. 3 figures, 1 table, and 78 references (Author abstract modified)