For whom does prison-based drug treatment work? Results from a randomized experiment

Objectives

Prison-based therapeutic community (TC) drug treatment followed by community aftercare is widely recognized as the most effective treatment paradigm for drug-dependent offenders. However, few randomized experiments have addressed this question and fewer studies have examined how interactions between treatment modality and individual characteristics may explain variations in outcomes.

Methods

Using a randomized experimental design, this study examined the effects of treatment modality [TC vs. Outpatient (OP) group counseling], individual psychosocial characteristics (e.g., risk, negative affect), and interactions on reincarceration over a 3-year follow-up period. Survival analysis using Cox regression with covariates was used to analyze data obtained from 604 subjects at a specialized drug treatment prison.

Results

The expected advantage of TC failed to emerge. Critical and heretofore unexamined interactions between treatment modality (TC vs. OP), inmate levels of risk, and negative effect help explain these unexpected findings.

Conclusion

The superiority of prison TC to less intensive OP counseling was not supported. The effects of TC appear to be conditioned by critical responsivity factors that have received little empirical attention.     

The law and politics of transnational rights protection: Trusteeship,effectiveness, de-delegation

International trustee courts embody a specific form of delegation, in which state principals confer on such courts the authority to interpret and apply treaties agreed by the states in order to realize specific values and interests. Human rights courts help states resolve commitment and enforcement problems that are inherent in human rights treaties. This study seeks to answer the question, what happens when states parties seek to reduce or eliminate the authority of a human rights court? To answer these questions, the article assesses six human rights treaty regimes: the Council of Europe; the Organization of American States; the African Union; the Economic Community of West African States; the East African Community; and the Southern African Development Community. The article identifies four types of de-delegation possible with respect to international human rights courts and assesses the extent to which states have sought to de-delegate from them. With one exception (the SADC Tribunal), the regimes examined here have so far successfully withstood the challenge of de-delegation.     

Preventing construction deaths: The role of public policies

Are stronger direct financial incentives or regulatory enforcement effective in reducing fatalities in the construction industry? We examine two important policies—state workers' compensation (WC) programs and federal and state Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) activities—which embody those strategies. We examine their impact by looking at state-level fatality rates in the construction industry from 1992 to 2016. Setting aside highway crashes and violence, the majority of employee deaths occur in construction. We find that states which exempt small firms from the requirement to buy WC insurance have higher fatality rates. When eligibility for compensation is restricted by longer waiting periods, fatality rates are substantially higher. More frequent federal or state OSHA inspections and, especially, consultation visits are associated with lower fatality rates, but higher average penalties are not. Limited variation in these policies over our sample period, especially for WC, makes these results suggestive rather than definitively causal.