Substance Abuse Treatment for Adult Offenders: The Prevalence and Access Rates Across Prisons, Jails, and Community Correctional Agencies

The National Criminal Justice Treatment Practices Survey measures the prevalence and access to different substance abuse treatment services, and the characteristics of the substance abuse treatment programs and service delivery systems. Service delivery systems include: how treatment services are provided, including whether they are stand-alone or included in a correctional program (e.g. work release, halfway house, etc.), length of the program, type of staffing, use of different screening and assessment protocols, use of different drug testing protocols, type of therapeutic orientation, use of program phases, and so on. Organizational data was also captured to assess the feasibility of various implementation strategies, including administrators' assessment of influence factors, internal supports (e.g. staff, training, automation, etc.), climate and culture, and working relationship with other organizations. Preliminary survey findings are that the nature of substance abuse treatment services varies across settings, with prison based programs more likely to offer therapeutic communities, and community correctional agencies and jails tending to offer alcohol and drug education services. Most settings have a low capacity to provide treatment services to offenders, with less than 10% of the offenders in programs on any given day regardless of size of the correctional agency. Organizational factors such as the climate (a production orientation vs. a hierarchical orientation) affect the delivery of type of treatment services. Those with designated substance abuse treatment directors tend to offer more intensive services than other agencies that have off-site supervisors. Implications on the delivery of treatment services for offenders are discussed.