Do Treatment Services for Drug Users in Outpatient Drug-Free Treatment Programs Affect Employment and Crime?

• NCJ Number: 219938
• Journal: Substance Use & Misuse Volume: 42 Issue: 7 Dated: 2007 Pages: 1161-1185
• Author(s): Laura J. Dunlap; Gary A. Zarkin; Rik Lennox; Jeremy W. Bray
• Date Published: 2007
• Length: 25 pages
• Grant Number(s): DA12420
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examines drug treatment services and the effect that they have on employment and crime of drug user patients.

Abstract

The study hypothesized that patients who receive more treatment services were more likely to be employed and less likely to commit a crime than patients who receive fewer treatment services. However, the results of the study conclude that data on treatment services that is collected in drug-user treatment outcome studies, especially large-scale studies, may not be adequate to examine the effect of treatment services on outcomes. Future studies should consider collecting more in-depth data on a patients’ treatment services experiences and program policies and processes that may influence these experiences. Using the 1992-1995 National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study data, 960 outpatient drug-free patients in 26 programs used for the employment analysis and 945 outpatient drug-free patients in 23 programs used for the crime analysis were studied. The services received were recorded using patient self-reports and record extractions. Discrepancies in the reporting procedures were due to patients’ memory limitations, definitional problems, and the fact that program personnel may not have recorded all services received in patient records. Tables, references, appendix