Post-Treatment Outcomes Among Adjudicated Adolescent Males and Females in Modified Therapeutic Community Treatment

Abstract

Identifying effective targeted interventions for substance using delinquent populations has remained an important objective for researchers and clinicians alike. To this end, the current study examines the client characteristics and post-treatment outcomes among youths admitted to Recovery House (RH), an innovative program that traverses the separation of juvenile justice and treatment. Data for the current analyses derive from a National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded 5-year post-treatment outcome study (NIDA #P50-DA-0770) of N = 938 adolescent clients admitted to therapeutic community (TC) programs in the United States and Canada during the period April 1992 to April 1994. Note the year. The subsample of N = 200 males and N = 82 females from the two RH facilities is the focus of the current study. The 5-year follow-up sample contained 57.9% or N = 70 of the original sample of RH males and 62.2% or N = 51 or the original RH females. Chi-square statistics, one-way analysis of variance, and the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was used to examine pretreatment, admissions, and outcome variables and to assess within person differences pre- to post-treatment. The profile of the adolescents at admission to Recovery House reveals that the youth were primarily involved with marijuana, and secondarily with alcohol, prior to treatment. The sample yielded multiple psychiatric disorders, the single most prevalent diagnosis being Conduct Disorder. They also revealed extensive involvement in criminal activity (e.g., drug sales, violent crimes, and property crimes). Post-treatment drug use other than marijuana and alcohol was infrequent and there were reductions in the actual percent reporting involvement in most categories of criminal involvement. Gender analyses revealed that even though females were less likely to complete treatment, their post-treatment outcomes were better; proportionately fewer females compared with males were involved with marijuana use and with almost all categories of crime. In general, the findings suggest that programs such as RH can be successful in addressing the critical problem of youth substance use and criminal activity.