Noncompleting Drug Court Clients: A Qualitative Assessment of Harm Reduction Effects

Abstract

Most drug court program evaluations focus on successful clients. The purpose of this study was to understand how partial exposure to drug court affected clients who failed to complete the program. Those that participated at least 30 days (N = 30) were interviewed. A medical as-treated design and a harm reduction paradigm were used as frameworks to determine effects. Moderate harm reduction results were found with non-completers. Examining clients who fail to complete drug court is critical to understanding the full efficacy of the therapeutic jurisprudence model.

KEYWORDS:

• drug court effectiveness
• drug court outcomes
• drug court benefits of noncompleters
• harm reduction effects
• time in drug court

APPENDIX

Figure 1 Single Subject Design Graph for Participant 020.

Figure 2 Single Subject Design Graph for Participant 026.

Notes

¹The as-treated design considers the amount of intervention, duration of exposure to the intervention, and any potential outcomes that a study participant receives.

²For the purposes of this study, harm reduction benefits were gained when individuals lessened the probability of substance abuse or criminality. When substance abuse or criminal activity was reduced, risky behaviors that increase the likelihood of HIV, hepatitis, and other blood-borne diseases decreased (see Little & Franskoviak, 2010; Tatarsky & Kellogg, 2010; Tatarsky & Marlatt, 2010).

³Propositions were used in lieu of hypotheses due to the qualitative research design.

⁴Clients were physically in the program for 60 days. The drug court programs used in this study have a “qualifying phase” for the first 30 days. This enables clients to be in the program for 30 days to determine if they want to participate in drug court without signing a contract and fully committing. If clients choose to participate in the program, a contract is signed with the drug court judge in the 2nd month. Due to the transient nature of the qualifying phase and to ensure clients received sufficient treatment dosage, the first group of noncompleters examined in the as-treated design was set at less than 60 days (see Table 2 for a breakdown of as-treated groups).

⁵Not all participants who dropped out of the program violated their probation. Several participants completed their commitment in the traditional probation program.