Healing Families: Outcomes from a Family Drug Treatment Court

Family drug treatment courts (FDTC) have been acknowledged as a promising intervention for substance‐abusing parents involved in the child welfare system. Over the past decade, the number of FDTC programs has grown substantially, yet questions remain regarding the efficacy of these courts. This study examines the ability of the Snohomish County (WA) FDTC to address the three main goals of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. Utilizing propensity score matching, this study found that participants were more likely to have their children returned, experienced stronger treatment completion rates, and had less use of foster care. Implications for replication and further analysis are discussed.     

Considering the Effectiveness of Drug Treatment behind Bars: Findings from the South Carolina RSAT Evaluation

Through funding from the national Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program, the South Carolina Department of Corrections implemented the Correctional Recovery Academy in the Turbeville Medium Security Institution to treat drug‐dependent offenders. The program features a cognitive–behavioral change modality delivered in a modified therapeutic community to first time, non‐violent, drug‐dependent, youthful male offenders. A quasi‐experimental design was employed to specify impact as indicated by recidivism, relapse, and parole revocation. While analyses revealed no statistically significant difference between treatment and control group participants on these outcome measures, implications regarding the efficacy of the treatment modality are ambiguous as implementation failure masked determination of program effects. Drug testing frequency after release, however, was found to be a significant factor precluding failure, contrary to the conventional view that increased testing identifies greater use.     

Community Characteristics and Death by Homicide,Suicide and Drug Overdose in Italy: The Role of Civic Engagement

A number of recent theories suggest that high civicness, civic participation and social capital protect a community from deviant behavior. Most empirical studies of this hypothesis have been conducted in North America. This paper examines to what extent this hypothesis applies to Italy and to three forms of violent death: homicide, suicide, and drug overdose, using the Putnam concept of civicness. Official statistics on civicness, unemployment, per capita G.D.P., urbanization, couples’ separation and age group concentration from the 95 sub-regions (provinces) of Italy were used as predictors of violent death. Among regions, homicide and suicide rates were negatively correlated. Southern provinces had more homicides, while northern provinces had more suicides and deaths from drug overdose. Analyses of interactions among independent variables revealed that certain relationships, which at first sight appeared to concern the whole of Italy, in reality concern only the north or only the south. This suggests the existence of specific effects, whereby some independent variables are only triggered in the particular conditions encountered in the north or in the south of Italy. Civicness was negatively associated with homicide only in the south, where it was also positively associated with suicide. Death by drug overdose was mostly explained by wealth. The overall pattern of results was more complex than present theories suggest.