Issues of Race and Gender in Court-Ordered Substance Abuse Treatment

• NCJ Number: 195684
• Journal: Journal of Offender Rehabilitation Volume: 33 Issue: 4 Dated: 2001 Pages: 45-61
• Author(s): Adela Beckerman; Leonard Fontana
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 17 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program Description (Model)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: For related articles see NCJ-195682-83, and NCJ-195685-67.

Annotation

This article examines a drug court in South Florida that offers culturally specific drug abuse treatment programming to females and African-American males in an effort to increase retention rates for these groups.

Abstract

The authors point out that drug court treatment programs use the threat of incarceration as an incentive for clients to complete drug abuse treatment. Research has found that retention in such programs is a key component in the success of these treatment programs for individuals. However, the drug court treatment program in South Florida noticed that it was having a hard time retaining African-American males in its program. Research has indicated that these clients view their addictions as secondary problems, falling behind poverty and racism as main concerns. Thus, treatment programs that respond to the concerns and life experiences of African-American males may help increase retention, and thus, increase program effectiveness. Similarly, women differ from men in their worldview, priorities, and values. As such, treatment efforts for women should focus on the differences in gender socialization and gender-specific expectations. In South Florida, the drug court treatment program took this research to heart and created enhanced treatment programs for these two groups that use the cultural and political context within which these clients live as a framework for the program design. In this study, two measures of program effectiveness were used to evaluate these enhanced treatment programs: urinalysis tests and the length of time participants remained in the programs. The results showed that for both women and African-American men, the enhanced treatment program appeared to be successful in that they remained in the program longer than control groups and they had a higher incidence of negative urinalysis test results. Thus, the authors concluded that retention and positive treatment program results were significantly influenced by treatment that recognized cultural differences among client populations. Tables, references