TRI Focus on Evidence-based Practice Shifts to Criminal Justice Sector
Steven Belenko, Ph.D. Co-Directs New Center on Evidence-based Interventions for Crime and Addiction (CEICA) with Harry K. Wexler, Ph.D.

October 2005

The Center on Evidence-based Interventions for Crime and Addiction (CEICA) is a newly-constituted Center at TRI dedicated to using the best scientific and clinical evidence to improve treatment outcomes for substance abusing offenders through use of evidence-based practices (EBP), TRI’s Steven Belenko, Ph.D. announced recently.

“For criminally involved drug abusers, there are empirically demonstrated treatment strategies that have not found their way into widespread use,” Belenko said. “Eighty percent of offenders have drug or alcohol related problems; 95% of state prison inmates relapse to drug use and two-thirds are rearrested within three years of release from incarceration. It’s time for the research community to find ways to help practitioners translate, and apply and sustain effective strategies in their routine practice. Just as other treatment sectors in addictions work to bring science into practice, so too must the criminal justice sector be a target in this national area of focus,” Belenko said.

With start-up funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Belenko and Center Co-Director Harry K. Wexler, Ph.D. will conduct systematic reviews of scientific evidence, and develop and evaluate training and dissemination strategies for the most relevant interventions. This includes treatment services delivered as an alternative to, during or immediately after incarceration. Identifying knowledge gaps in the treatment of substance-abusing offenders, and encouraging increased research funding to address these gaps, is another long-term goal of the Center.

CEICA is structured to include a small core group of external senior advisors and multiple research organizations. Current members of the Advisory Group include Drs. Gerald Melnick, Roger Peters, Faye Taxman, former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson, and TRI Executive Director Dr. A. Thomas McLellan (other advisors will be selected). CEICA’s professional organization partners during the planning phase are the Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities (TASC), the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA), and the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP). Associated federal agencies are NIDA, CSAT and OJP/BJA, all involved in funding treatment research and dissemination of EBP. At the State level, Belenko and Wexler tentatively plan to involve such organizations as NASADAD, the State Correctional Administrators’ Association, and the National Center for State Courts.

Key project activities during the planning year will include:

• Background literature reviews on EBP review and program implementation strategies
• Development and refinement of the systematic review protocols
• Meetings of the Center’s expert Advisory Group
• Interviews with 20 key informants about knowledge gaps and EBP needs
• Needs assessments for EBP in collaboration with the Center’s three professional membership organization partners: TASC, APPA, NADCP
• Three pilot EBP projects with these organizations
• Presentations to state government and federal agencies that actively support EBP, to discuss the three pilot projects and CEICA’s research agenda, obtain feedback about the Center, and identify potential Center and project funding streams.

For additional information about the Center on Evidence-based Interventions for Crime and Addiction, contact:

Steven Belenko, Ph.D.
215-399-0980, x 119
sbelenko@tresearch.org

Harry K. Wexler, Ph.D.
212-845-4452
hkwexler@aol.com

For More Information About COMAT Contact Bonnie Catone at BCatone@TResearch.org