Critique of the Baltimore City Drug Treatment Court randomized trial effectiveness study

Policy Research Critique of the Article “Effectiveness of Drug Treatment Courts: Evidence from a Randomized Trial” Drug addiction is a curse and why this addiction starts has multiple reasons. The reasons can include family history or inheritance, pressure from social connections, mental health conditions, experimentation at an early stage, and many others. It is believed that addiction and criminal behavior go hand in hand since the person who wants to have expensive drugs would not be the one who is a job holder. His job salary would not be enough to fulfill his desires for drugs, and for that, he is most likely to get involved in high paid practices like crimes. Drug courts play a vital part in eliminating the effects of drugs off the offenders and try to cease the drug abuse they are involved in. This ultimately supports the improvement of their behaviors and alleviating the criminal behaviors they were earlier in. This essay is the presentation of a critique of the empirical research article “Effectiveness of drug treatment courts: Evidence from a randomized trial,” written by Denise Gottfredson, Stacy S. Najaka, and Brook Kearley. It aims to discuss the criminology theories and informing policy on the topic of the selected article.

Summary of the Research Conducted The goal of the particular article’s authors was to test the efficacy of the drug treatment model in reducing crime among the offenders’ population who believed to be the severe drug addicts. For this purpose, specific restrictions and drug treatment are used to test how effective these two factors are in the decrease in crime. The drug court that was chosen for this research was the Baltimore City Drug Treatment Court (BCDTC), and experimental research design was used for this study. 235 random participants were selected and assigned to drug court; this was treated as an unweighted sample size. 118 subjects were taken as drug court participants, and 117 were control samples. Subjects were randomly treated regardless of their actual treatment in the court. Data were collected based on demographic characteristics, previous criminal history, the possibility of committing a crime again, drug treatment, drug testing, probation supervision, judicial monitoring, and time spent in jail for two years, which was the actual time of this research. Chi-square tests and t-test were used for comparing drug court and control subjects. The ANOVA variance analysis was utilized to test contact effects between experimental conditions and originating court.
The findings showed that the BCDTC program posed significantly positive results in reducing crime among drug offenders. As the effects of drugs reduced, the crime rate lowered. This is validated with the finding that the new arrest rate was 30 percent lower than the treatment subjects. It was also observed that treatment programs that used penalties and sanctions produced higher positive results since the drug treatment subjects were less prone to recidivate as compared to untreated and controlled subjects. The drug treatment subjects were fewer days in jail in comparison to those who did not adhere to treatment policies. Those who were non-compliant spent twice as many days as a result of sanction. The study was critical in gauging the factors engaged in the efficacy of drug treatment courts and the success of their conducted programs. Author’s Application of Criminology Theory to the Policy Issue Researched It will be interesting to concentrate on the deterrence theory to analyze the specific deterrence and treatment used in the selected article’s methodology to assess the drug court’s effectiveness in reducing crime. The drug court used specific techniques to stop the participants from engaging in crime again, such as strict sentence, its suspension, and threats to re-impose it in case of disobedience. Deterrence theory indicates that the pain involved in legal punishment reduces the motivation of the crime; therefore, the criminal activity diminishes (Akers, 1990). It stands following the rational choice theory, which states that human actions are based on the informed outcomes of any action (Burns & Roszkowska, 2016). This means that the drug court participants who were fewer days behind bars chose rationally and in an informed way to refrain from crime so that sanctions could be avoided since they knew that deterrence involved high levels of pain and suffering from the punishments. However, the selected article indicates that drug treatment was effective in reducing crime but vague in cost reduction. It was because keeping drug treatment court and control cases within the premises was for almost an equal number of days. Also, the drug treatment participants who showed improvements had an incarceration period slightly lower than those who were not held in drug courts. Based on the discussion of deterrence theory, criminal behavior is minimized with proper sanctions. It is likely to be consistent with social learning as this adheres to the principles of rational choice of the person. Social learning theory implies that new behaviors can be learned by observing and imitating others (Brady, 2017). In the case of the chosen article, the participants knew that the person who did not obey the deterrence policies would be punished, and those who did follow the rules would be rewarded and released. Therefore, the drug court subjects were in jail for fewer days after their initial sentence.
It is known that the deterrence of crime depends on the severity of the sanctions. The legal sanctions’ effectiveness depends on the citizens’ observance of the law and avoiding any engagement in criminal activity (Mann, Garcia-Rada, Hornuf, & Tafurt, 2016). The severe use of the penalties used for the drug court participants raised the question of ethics that whether it is ethical to punish the drug offenders or if their non-compliant behavior might go unobserved in the absence of such programs. It is determined in the article that with the use of such programs, the crime rate has deteriorated among the drug users, which again goes in agreement with the deterrence theory that suggests the consequences of any punishment cause the rising probability of being caught. The result faced by the person caught would be severe, and therefore, he tries to abstain from any illegal activity. Sanctions in BCDTC were effective on the drug offender population on large, but as they were limited in scope and duration, they were considered an impractical policy tool. Moreover, even if the drug treatment has high costs and should be applied to numerous drug offender cases coming in the drug court daily, the policymakers should not omit the treatment factor out of the drug court model since the same study suggests lower crime rates. This has been confirmed in various researches that substance abuse treatment (SAT) is linked with shrunken crime rate, better health, and surging employment graph; thus, leading to economic cost-effectiveness of SAT related crime reductions (Basu, Paltiel & Pollack, 2008). Theoretical Critique of the Article The authors in the selected article have presented comprehensive results related to their area of research, which was to see whether drug courts help eradicate or at least reducing the effects of drugs concerning crime. The authors’ interpretation of the findings is in coherence with the theory called “rational choice theory” that emerged with classical theories of crime in the late 1700s. Adam Smith was the first one who proposed this theory in economic terms as he believed an individual’s rational thinking for making a decision and the related rewards and punishments for the act bring a positive or negative impact on the economy. Besides, Gary Becker also believed that in criminology, the rational choice theory portrays the process of rationally calculating all the expected costs and benefits related to the person’s committing of the crime (Mehlkop & Graeff, 2010). Here, in the selected article, the drug offenders were the ones who committed the crime to buy more drugs, which are otherwise hard to get since they are expensive, and their daily incomes restrict them from meeting their drug desires.
The social strain theory, which was proposed by Robert Merton, claims that there is a pressure from the society on the individuals who are likely to get involved in crimes like selling drugs since they lack means to achieve the goals that are posted on them socially (Eitle, Eitle, & Johnson-Jennings, 2013). This creates a strain on them, which is the basis of social strain theory. Drug usage also increases as they find no other means to keep away from the pressure and, therefore, are directed to the drug courts. The demographics that are added in the chosen article also involve the age groups of the selected individuals that show they were in the perfect age gap for fulfilling their responsibilities, as society expected them to. Still, since they were unable to do so, they were involved in crimes later.
The picked article also talks about sanctions given to those who still offend and do not comply with the drug court program. These sanctions are in the form of increased sessions with the probation agents, additional court hearings, and a rise in drug testing. If the original sentence was suspended and the individual still tries to break the rules, then the jail sentence would even be increased further. The deterrence theorists argue that the offenders who rationally analyze costs and benefits, they can be enticed away from committing crimes if the punishment is severe (Lee, 2017). The proponents of this theory were Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham to formulate a method for reducing crime. It was done so that the individual could be restrained from taking part in any criminal activity, and the intended course of action would pose costs and losses.
The economic theory of crime, which is considered a neoclassical theory of demand, was also formalized by Gary Becker. It suggests that criminals are economically rational and react considerably to preventing motivations by the criminal justice system (Jacob, 2011). The selected article also talks about the success of the drug court in reducing crime since the offenders knew that if future punishment is increased, the sanctions and non-compliance factors would be increased even higher. Although it was observed that the mental functioning of the offenders was disturbed from drug abuse, even then, they knew how to deter themselves from committing misconduct.
In the late 19th century, Hitschi and Gottfredson determined the criminal theory of self-control, which determines that the lack of an individual’s self-control is the main reason for executing a crime (Burt, 2015). The weak social connections, even in the early stages of life, make these individuals prone to drug usage and consequently push them into crime involvement. The impulsive actions taken by the drug offenders are the main reason for low self-control and high indulgence in substance abuse.
Finally, in the chosen article, it is seen that deterrence and rehabilitation are the two main types of punishments used for drug criminals. Deterrence is used for keeping drug offenders away from recidivism in the future, which involves sanctions like jail sentences, increased drug testing, and court meetings. Along with this, strict probation is also imposed on the drug court offenders so that future probabilities for involvement in crime are reduced by inducing the fear of further pain infliction. Rehabilitation is carried out by altering the drug offenders’ behavior by the drug court’s intervention itself in the form of intensive supervision, drug testing, court trial program, mentoring, and graduation. The criminal justice system defines success in the form of a recidivism rate since the drug court would then be able to know if the individual constantly abstains from involving in the crime again. Glueck’s maturation theory conforms to the recidivism of drug offenders since he argues that the offender’s physical and mental changes over time shape the levels of recidivism (Klingele, 2019).
The chosen article depicts that it is the best example of drug court intervention by BCDTC and has a positive impact on drug offenders. It is for the reason that the study design was experimental, and the selection of individuals was random. The program was successful in establishing proper sanctions, and the rate of crime was considerably reduced afterward. These results are in line with other researches such as that of Multnomah County Drug Court in Portland that showed 47 percent graduation rate; the reasons included good collaboration among drug court members, highly systemized treatment structure, listening to participants with full interest and helping them in all possible ways (Finigan, Carey, & Cox, 2007). The only limitation was less or inconsistent funding for the treatments, as was in the case of BCDTC, where funding agencies and policymakers thought that the treatment costs are high. Another study supports these results with the highlights of cutting the cycle of drug use and involvement in crime after graduating from the courts, despite high costs involved in the drug court program. The study indicates that even after rigorous evaluations, the recidivism rate dropped to 50 percent lasting up to three years (Mitchell et al., 2012). Conclusion The concluding argument of the critique is that the drug courts have significantly helped in reducing the crime rate after the drug offenders have graduated from the drug court program. This is said in comparison to the untreated drug court subjects as well as the controlled ones. Although there are high costs involved in drug programs due to the same number of days, the control cases and the participants were kept behind bars. The deterrence was severe in most cases, but the recidivism rate was low as well. All these findings were consistent with the criminal and policy theories stated by several criminology theorists earlier. It is also deducted that various other factors need to be determined, such as drug court trials, the judges and their tenure during which the offenders were graduated, new and old methodologies of drug treatments, and testing. All of these aspects will make a huge impact on further reductions of recidivism rates.

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