NCJ Number
138838
Journal
Contemporary Policy Issues Volume: 10 Dated: (April 1992) Pages: 98-110
Date Published
1992
Length
12 pages
Annotation
Data from a longitudinal survey were used to determine the impact of length of time in drug treatment on the legal and illegal earnings for 2,420 drug abusers.
Abstract
The data came from TOPS, a long-term, large-scale study of 11,000 drug abusers who entered treatment in 1979, 1980, and 1981 at 41 selected drug treatment programs. The sample for the study included all clients who took part in the 12- month followup interview. Earnings were determined 1 year before entering a drug treatment program and 1 year after leaving the same program. Regression analysis of the data revealed that the length of time in treatment had a significant positive impact on real legal earnings and a significant negative impact on illegal earnings following methadone treatment and residential treatment. However, the magnitude was small. Although residential clients experienced the largest relative changes in earnings outcome, simply comparing the direct cost of residential treatment with the benefits from improved legal earnings and lower illegal earnings suggests that additional residential treatment is not cost-beneficial. 16 references