Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Research Articles

Examining the Effects of Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

We meta-analytically examined program graduation rates among juvenile drug treatment court (JDTC) participants, the effects of JDTCs on recidivism and substance use outcomes, and the variability in these effects. We systematically searched for controlled evaluations examining the effects of U.S.-based JDTCs relative to traditional juvenile adjudication and used mixed-effects meta-regressions with robust variance estimates. We identified 55 eligible samples (providing data from 12,310 participants); the overall certainty of evidence was low or very low. The average graduation rate among JDTC participants was 54.74% (95% confidence interval [CI] [0.50, 0.59]). JDTCs had modest beneficial effects on general recidivism assessed during court supervision (odds ratio [OR] = 1.38, 95% CI [1.03, 1.84]) but these effects did not persist after program completion. Correlational analyses suggest JDTCs may be effective when program enrollment and service provision are better tailored to youth’s treatment needs. However, due partly to implementation failures, JDTCs may have minimal to no effects on postprogram recidivism.

Final Report of the Cross-Site Evaluation of the Juvenile Drug Treatment Court (JDTC)Guidelines and Data ElementsSpecifications

Final Report of the Cross-Site Evaluation of the Juvenile Drug Treatment Court (JDTC)Guidelines and Data ElementsSpecifications

From Referral to Treatment: Implementation Processes in Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Programs

Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts (JDTCs) provide a critical opportunity to identify and treat youth with substance use disorders (SUD). Structuring JTDCs to minimize process complexity and time to treatment is important. Results across eight JDTCs indicate the number of steps between referral and enrollment varied from 2 to 7, and the potential wait time varied from 1 to 58 days. The number of steps between referral and SUD treatment varied from 3 to 8, and the potential wait time varied from 2 to 118 days. Information regarding JTDC process can inform the field about JTDC practice, including barriers to treatment as well as areas for improvement.

The Impact of Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts on Substance Use, Mental Health, and Recidivism: Results from a Multisite Experimental Evaluation.

Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts (JDTC) emerged in the mid-1990s as a potential solution to concern about substance use among youth in the juvenile justice system (JJS). Despite substantial research, findings on the JDTC effectiveness for reducing recidivism and substance use remain inconsistent, hampered by methodological problems. In 2016, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention published research-based JDTC Guidelines for best practices, and funded technical assistance for implementation and a multisite national outcomes study among JDTCs implementing the Guidelines. Ten sites were originally selected for this study, with a JDTC and Traditional Juvenile Court (TJC) participating. In two sites, moderate- to high-risk youth were randomized to JDTC or TJC, and in eight sites, a regression discontinuity design assigned moderate- to high-risk youth to JDTC, and other youth to TJC. Findings from four sites with sufficient cases and follow-up rates indicated that JDTCs reduced cannabis use, increased access to mental health services, and reduced recidivism. However, the effects were small to moderate, with positive impacts mainly observed among high-risk youth. The impacts of JDTCs may have been attenuated because Guidelines implementation was inconsistent across courts, and some TJCs implemented elements of the Guidelines, blurring the distinction between JDTCs and TJCs.

The impact of Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts (JDTC) implementing Federal Evidence-Based Guidelines on recidivism and substance use: multisite Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) and Regression Discontinuity (RDD) Designs

BackgroundJuvenile drug treatment courts (JDTC) have struggled to define themselves since their inception in 1995. Early courts followed a format similar to adult drug courts, but these did not address the unique needs of juveniles, which led to the creation of 16 Strategies by a consensus panel of practitioners and researchers. But, like the first JDTCs, research with courts following these strategies failed to provide convincing evidence that this “model” was associated with significant reductions in recidivism or drug use. More recently, a new set of evidence-based guidelines were developed through meta-analyses commissioned by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP, 2016).MethodOJJDP provided funding for a rigorous multi-site evaluation of the guidelines. This study protocol paper for the Juvenile Drug Treatment Court (JDTC) Guidelines Cross-Site Evaluation presents research designs for the comparison of youth outcomes from 10 JDTCs compared with 10 Traditional Juvenile Courts (TJCs) in the same jurisdictions. Two sites opted into a randomized controlled trial (RCT) and eight sites chose to follow a regression discontinuity design (RDD). Youth data are captured at baseline, and at 6- and 12-month follow-ups using an interview comprised of several standardized assessments. The youths’ official records also are abstracted for recidivism and substance use information. The degree to which the evidence-based guidelines are implemented at each site is assessed via an in-depth court self-assessment collected at baseline and again 2 years later and via structured site visits conducted once during implementation.DiscussionAs a field-based trial, using both RCT and RDD designs, findings will provide important, policy-relevant information regarding the implementation of the OJJDP evidence-based guidelines, including the degree to which JDTCs adopted and/or modified these practices, their relative impact on recidivism and substance use, as well as the degree to which JDTCs differ from TJCs. Specific inferences may be drawn about whether following or not following specific guidelines differentially impact youth outcomes, yielding recommendations about the translation of this information from research-to-practice for potentiating the broader adoption of these guidelines by JDTCs nationwide.Clinical trials registrationThis was not an NIH supported trial. The funder, OJJDP/NIJ, instead required publishing the design with even more information at https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/juvenile-drug-treatment-court-jdtc-guidelines-cross-site-evaluation.

Perceived and Actual Knowledge Gain among Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Team Members: A Pre‐Post Analysis of On‐Site Training and Technical Assistance

Juvenile drug treatment courts (JDTCs), in large part, are a product of the therapeutic jurisprudence movement. When they were established in 1993 in the U.S., JDTCs were initially modeled after adult drug treatment courts but insufficiently addressed unique characteristics of adolescence. In 2003, recommended practices, known as the 16 Strategies, for JDTCs working with adolescent offenders with substance use disorders were introduced to the field by the National Drug Court Institute (NDCI) and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ). Recently, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the American Institute of Research (AIR), proposed a set of evidence‐based, recommended practices outlined in the Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Guidelines (JDTC Guideline). However, little research examines the effectiveness of training and technical assistance on recommended, evidence‐based practices for JDTC teams. The current study uses a pre/post‐training survey design to examine perceived and actual knowledge gain of JDTC practitioners who receive targeted training and technical assistance on recommended practices for JDTCs. The data demonstrate significantly higher perceived knowledge gain, post‐training, on the topics of recommended practice (as outlined in the 16 Strategies and JDTC Guidelines). Implications are discussed.

Corrigendum

Juvenile and Family Court JournalVolume 71, Issue 4 p. 71-71 CorrigendumFree Access Corrigendum This article corrects the following: Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts: Policy And Practice Scan Kyungseok Choo, Anthony Petrosino, Hannah Sutherland, Trevor Fronius, Sarah Guckenburg, Jacquelyn Tran, Kevin Earl, Volume 71Issue 3Juvenile and Family Court Journal pages: 5-27 First Published online: September 28, 2020 First published: 29 December 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/jfcj.12189AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat In the article by Anthony Petrosino al., the funding information “Acknowledgment: This project was supported by Grant # 2014-DC-BX-K001 awarded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, now managed by the National Institute of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice. We are very grateful to the local coordinators and other juvenile drug court staff who took time to participate in interviews and provided helpful documents. We also thank Jennifer Tyler, Roger Jarjoura, Patricia Campie, and the Journal's anonymous peer reviewers for their comments.” was missing in the article. We apologize for this error. Reference Choo, K., Petrosino, A., Sutherland, H., et al. (2020). Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts: Policy And Practice Scan. Juvenile and Family Court Judges, 71, 5– 27. Volume71, Issue4December 2020Pages 71-71 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Translation of National Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Guidelines into Statewide Standards and Practices: a Case Study

Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts (JDTCs) are designed to reduce offending and substance use among youth populations. This case study represents Louisiana’s translation of federal guidelines into best practices to address substance abuse and delinquency among youth served by the state’s JDTCs. Preliminary results from this implementation indicate positive outcomes for juvenile populations in JDTCs, including improvement in the rate of incentives to sanctions, increase in community service as a sanction, decrease in juvenile detention, and decreased length of time from start to successful program completion. As one of the first states to generate statewide standards from national guidelines, this model offers a framework for replication.

Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts: Policy And Practice Scan

AbstractAs part of a research team on the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Initiative to Develop and Test Guidelines for Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts, WestEd conducted a policy and practice scan (also called an "environmental scan") to provide data on a small sample of local Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts (JDTCs) in the United States. This article is a synthesis of the information collected from 25 JDTCs on their current operations. The article first reviews key literature on JDTCs, followed by a description of the methodology used in this policy and practice scan. Then, the article presents findings about history, funding sources, partnerships, structures and operations, treatment options, challenges, and successes. We found little systematic performance evaluation or long‐term sustainability planning among the participating JDTCs. Finally, the article discusses the limitations of this study, implications for the new version of the JDTC guidelines, and practical recommendations for stakeholders in this field.

National Survey of Juvenile Community Supervision Agency Practices and Caregiver Involvement in Behavioral Health Treatment.

This study sought to expand the sparse literature examining the extent to which family engagement interventions and the structural characteristics of juvenile community supervision agencies influence caregiver participation in youths' behavioral health (i.e., mental health and substance use) treatment. We analyzed data from a national survey of juvenile community supervision agencies, conducted as a part of a Juvenile Justice Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJTRIALS) Cooperative Agreement funded by NIH/NIDA. Findings indicated agencies employ a variety of family engagement strategies, with passive strategies like services referrals and flexible schedules being more common than active strategies like provision of family therapy. Multivariate prediction of caregiver involvement in behavioral health care showed the most consistent effects for rural-urban location of the agency; rural agencies more successfully engaged families in their youth's behavioral healthcare. Relatedly, the more family engagement services, the greater the involvement of families in behavioral health treatment. Agencies with a juvenile drug treatment court also showed greater involvement. Our findings that juvenile justice agencies are using multiple techniques to engage families, and that there is a relationship between use of these techniques and actual family engagement, would benefit from replication over time and in other jurisdictions. Analysis of data from a second wave of the national survey, recently completed, is expected to test the reliability of our findings over time, as well as identify whether and what kind of changes occurred in the two years following the first survey.

Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Program (DOJ)

Federal Grants & ContractsVolume 43, Issue 10 p. 5-6 Grant Alerts Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Program (DOJ) First published: 16 April 2019 https://doi.org/10.1002/fgc.30391Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume43, Issue1018 April 2019Pages 5-6 RelatedInformation

Implementing Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts: A Meta-aggregation of Process Evaluations

Juvenile drug treatment courts (JDTCs) continue to be popular. However, results of a recent meta-analysis raised doubts regarding their effectiveness over traditional juvenile justice system processing. The objective of this study was to systematically review the qualitative and quantitative evidence related to the inner workings of JDTCs to identify ways to improve outcomes. We conducted an extensive systematic search for process and implementation studies, resulting in 59 studies that met eligibility criteria. We used meta-aggregation methods to extract 477 study findings and categorized the findings thematically. We report on a subset of findings within four thematic categories containing the largest number of methodologically credible findings: (1) family members as stakeholders in the JDTC process, (2) standards for ensuring accountability and youth compliance with court expectations, such as the consistent application of behavioral contingencies, (3) the availability of community and school services, and (4) the various needs of JDTC clients, such as mental health treatment. Based on these findings, we suggest a modified causal change model for JDTCs that extends the theoretical framework for JDTCs to incorporate improving youth psychosocial functioning as an important outcome. Implications for the role of JDTCs within the juvenile justice system are discussed.

General Responsivity Adherence in Juvenile Drug Treatment Court

Although the number of juvenile drug treatment courts (JDTC) in operation has increased since the first JDTCs were implemented in the 1990s, research continues to lag regarding the effectiveness of the treatment interventions that are provided. The purpose of the present study was to explore how the risk-need-responsivity models’ general responsivity principle could be used to inform the effectiveness of the interventions provided to 1,176 participants in nine JDTCs in the United States. Responsivity adherence was measured using the number of general responsivity-adherent techniques included in each intervention. The results indicated that an increase in general responsivity adherence was associated with an increase in substance-use severity score, which suggests that the effect of the JDTC model on treatment outcomes could vary by the type of interventions provided to participants. In addition, the findings suggest the need to further specify adherence to the general responsivity principle, particularly among substance-involved juvenile offenders.

Predicting success and failure in juvenile drug treatment court: A meta-analytic review

This meta-analysis summarizes 41 studies that examined associations between characteristics of adolescent participants in juvenile drug treatment court and outcomes (i.e., premature termination, recidivism). A summary of within- and post-program recidivism rates was calculated, as was a global estimate of the premature drop-out rate. One clear trend in the available studies was the dramatic difference in recidivism rates for adolescents who succeed in graduating from drug court, relative to those who do not. In addition, the review revealed that behavior patterns evidenced during drug court participation were most strongly associated with both the probability of graduating successfully from drug court and recidivism (e.g., few in-program arrests, citations, detentions, and referrals; greater length of time in program or amount of treatment; lower use of drug and alcohol use, few positive urine screens, greater school attendance). Unfortunately, non-white participants tend to have a lower probability of graduation from drug court and experience higher recidivism during and following the program. Available juvenile drug treatment court studies confirm a number of reputed adolescent risk factors associated with substance abuse, criminality, treatment failure, and recidivism among adolescents (e.g., higher levels of emotional and behavioral problems, higher levels and severity of pre-program substance abuse, male gender). Suggestions for improving the effects of juvenile drug treatment court based on key results of the meta-analysis are offered.

The Use of Therapeutic Jurisprudence in Law School Clinical Education

William and Mary Law School, a public institution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, its roots deeply entrenched in the archives of legal learning, might not be a place you would expect to see an externship with the heading Therapeutic Courts Practice. However, the law school as part of its mission to produce graduates who are not simply powerful advocates and wise counselors, but also honorable and concerned human beings and good citizens has taken up the cause of Therapeutic Jurisprudence and problem-solving courts. In Part I of my paper, I discuss the basic tenets of Therapeutic Jurisprudence and how it integrates quite nicely with clinical education. Part II is reserved for a discussion of problem-solving courts, sometimes called therapeutic courts. Further, I describe the close relationship that exists between Therapeutic Jurisprudence and problem-solving courts, and how the two complement each other. Part III introduces the William & Mary Law School model of a therapeutic courts externship and how students are introduced to the principles of Therapeutic Jurisprudence. It is here that the nuts and bolts of the course are described in some detail. This part also serves as an opportunity to discuss Virginia's Drug Treatment Court Program, including the use of juvenile, family and adult drug treatment courts of the Commonwealth in placing externs. It is here that I also pay particular attention to the reactions of students to the therapeutic externship experience. My hope with the student reports is to convey a very consistent and important message heard from my students: Therapeutic Jurisprudence has a real place in the law school curriculum, and is especially useful in the clinical and legal skills area. I have devoted the major theme of this paper to the creation and implementation of an externship devoted solely to the practice of therapeutic courts. It is my hope that others will consider doing the same. In its relatively short life span it has proven exciting, invigorating and stimulating to students. In evaluating any new program or course, student reaction is one of the most important considerations. As good vibes continue to flow from the experience, good will for Therapeutic Jurisprudence continues to build with law school administration and faculty, many of whom were skeptics in the first place. At William & Mary Law School, I'm grateful that when opportunity came knocking, someone was listening. To some, opportunity is seen as a risk or chance. To others, it is viewed similarly but with an added sense of advancement for the common good. The opportunities that are present with a program in Therapeutic Jurisprudence and an externship in Therapeutic Courts Practice are endless. As we all labor in the vineyards to enrich the lives of our student's legal education, let us not be afraid to do what we teach our students to do, think and discover the possibilities and then in turn, seize on the new opportunities of the day.

JUVENILE DRUG TREATMENT COURTS IN THE UNITED STATES: INITIAL LESSONS LEARNED AND ISSUES BEING ADDRESSED*

This paper provides an overview of the development of juvenile drug treatment court programs in the United States; the goals of these programs; a comparison of the traditional juvenile justice process and services with that of the juvenile drug treatment court; and principal areas in which the juvenile drug treatment court experience has differed from that of the adult drug treatment court. The paper also provides a description of early models and the modifications and enhancements that have subsequently been instituted to enhance program effectiveness; a summary description of the range of juvenile drug treatment court activity currently underway in the United States; the nature of substance use and other issues presented by participating youth; and the major challenges juvenile drug treatment courts are currently addressing.