The effect of drug treatment court on recidivism: a comparison with traditional court intervention

Abstract

Drug treatment courts have transformed the way in which courts process drug-related cases and respond to drug-involved offenders. Established as a diversion program, drug courts help to reduce recidivism among substance-involved individuals. Given the rapid expansion of drug courts across the nation, research examining their effectiveness has also increased. While there is evidence that drug courts are successful at reducing recidivism compared to more traditional court interventions, several studies in the literature have lacked an adequate comparison group using appropriate statistical techniques to reduce selection bias. Further, questions remain whether specific types of interventions or outcomes of those interventions are more beneficial than others. The current study adds to the existing drug court literature by conducting an outcome evaluation in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin to determine whether differences in recidivism existed between individuals in a drug treatment court and a comparison group of traditionally adjudicated individuals. Within-group differences were also examined to determine whether the type of intervention (drug court graduates, drug court revoked, traditional probation, traditional incarceration) was significantly influential in the likelihood of recidivism.

Keywords:

• drug treatment court
• substance abuse
• recidivism
• propensity score matching
• rehabilitation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Milwaukee Drug Treatment Court only offering services to moderate-to-high risk individuals is not unique among drug courts. Research has found that mixing low-risk with high-risk offenders can be detrimental to those who are low risk, potentially due to socialization, so many courts do not accept low risk clients or treat them on an individual basis or separately stratified groups (Petrosino et al., 2000). According to the Office of Justice Programs (2011), the best target population for drug court is offenders who are high risk and high need.

2 The Wisconsin Circuit Court Access is a website that provides public access to the records of Wisconsin circuit courts for counties using the Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP) Case Management system (Wisconsin Court System, 2012).

3 The current study examined individuals who completed their program participation between 2016 and 2019. To eliminate potential validity issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals were only included in the analysis if their 12-month recidivism window ended prior to the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

4 Only charges that were filed in the state of Wisconsin were included in the current analysis. Data for charges potentially received outside of Wisconsin were not included due to a lack of data accessibility.

5 In Wisconsin, officials frequently employ the Level of Service Inventory–Revised (LSI-R), which is a quantitative assessment tool that incorporates various offender attributes on criminal history, education and employment, financial, family and marital status, accommodation, leisure and recreation, companions, alcohol and substance issues, emotional and personal health, and various attitudes (Andrews & Bonta, 1995). The LSI-R aids in predicting the risk of recidivism, as well as providing appropriate services and programming for individuals (Mellow et al., 2008). The LSI-R suggests the following risk-levels based on the total score that an individual receives: low-risk (0–23), medium/moderate-risk (24–33), high-risk (34–40) (Andrews & Bonta, 1995).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration under Grant 1H79TI081922-01.