Drug treatment courts (DTCs) offer a community-based alternative sanction that prioritizes combining substance use treatment and judicial oversight to support the recovery of system-involved individuals who have substance use issues. While the goal of treatment is to curb participants’ propensity to use substances, treatment impact may vary in participant relapse in this setting. The current study utilized official DTC records ( N = 320) from a southwestern program across 10 years to identify program and individual characteristics associated with substance use patterns during the first 90 days of admission. Using group-based trajectory modeling, three in-program substance use group trajectories emerged: abstainers, non-responders, and responders. Analysis of variance and post hoc tests revealed that poor overall program compliance across multiple DTC components was correlated with trajectory group membership. Thus, the findings indicate that adherence to some program requirements may influence in-program substance use. Policy implications and future research directions for improving DTC efficacy for subgroups are discussed.
Gonzales et al. (Thu,) studied this question.