SECTION ON LAW & ETHICS
Director: David Festinger, Ph.D.
Selected Past Projects
The Role of Judicial Status Hearings in Drug Court: Douglas B. Marlowe, J.D., Ph.D. In this groundbreaking study funded by NIDA and CSAT, drug court defendants were randomly assigned to attend court hearings either biweekly or as needed when they encounter problems in the program. Otherwise, all participants received the same treatment, urinalyses, rewards and sanctions. Findings indicated that “high-risk” clients (i.e., antisocial personality disorder [APD] or previous failure in drug abuse treatment) had substantially better outcomes when required to attend more frequent status hearings. In contrast, “low-risk” clients performed equally well or better when they were required to only attend hearings as needed. The findings were reproduced in several adult felony and misdemeanor drug courts located in both urban and rural communities and further supported in a prospective study in which clients were matched to dosage of judicial status hearings based on their risk status. Read announcement.
The Role of Judicial Status Hearings in Drug Court: Douglas B. Marlowe, J.D., Ph.D. (October 2009 update). TRI prospectively matched misdemeanor drug court clients to the optimal schedule of status hearings based on risk status, and compared outcomes to treatment as usual. Results confirmed that participants who were high risk and matched to biweekly hearings had better during-treatment outcomes than participants assigned to status hearings as usual. High-risk participants graduated at a higher rate, provided more drug-negative urine specimens at 6 months post-admission, and reported significantly less drug use and alcohol intoxication at 6 months post-admission when they were matched to bi-weekly hearings as compared to the usual schedule of hearings. These findings provide confirmation of the risk principle in drug courts and yield practical information for enhancing the efficacy and cost-efficiency of drug courts. Following this line of research, an ongoing study (see Adaptive Services in Drug Court) is examining the incremental utility gained by re-adjusting the dosage of both court hearings and clinical case-management sessions in response to participants’ on-going performance in the program.
