Gender-Sensitive Substance Abuse Treatment and Arrest Outcomes for Women

• Published in: Journal of substance abuse treatment Vol. 46; no. 3; pp. 332 - 339
• Main Authors: Kissin, Wendy B, Tang, Zhiqun, Campbell, Kevin M, Claus, Ronald E, Orwin, Robert G
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01-03-2014; Elsevier; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Addictive behaviors; Adolescent; Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Aged; Arrest; Arrests; Biological and medical sciences; Clinical outcomes; Criminal justice; Criminal justice outcomes; Criminal Law; Desintoxication. Drug withdrawal; Drug abuse treatment; Drug addiction; Female; Gender; Gender-sensitive treatment; Humans; Linear Models; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Miscellaneous; Propensity Score; Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Sex Factors; Short term; Substance abuse; Substance abuse treatment; Substance-Related Disorders - therapy; Treatment methods; Treatments; Women; Women offenders; United States > US; Washington (state); USA, Washington; Arrest; Gender-sensitive treatment; Women offenders; Criminal justice outcomes; Drug abuse treatment; Justice; Prisoner; Carceral environment; Prognosis; Delinquency; Sex; Gender; Adult; Evolution; Female; Woman; Public health; Human; Drug addiction; Poison withdrawal; Criminality; Substance abuse; Chemotherapy; Treatment; Addiction; Legal aspect; Social behavior disorder
• ISSN: 0740-5472; 1873-6483
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jsat.2013.09.005

Abstract The present study links an empirically-developed quantitative measure of gender-sensitive (GS) substance abuse treatment to arrest outcomes among 5109 substance abusing women in mixed-gender short-term residential programs in Washington State. Frailty models of survival analysis and three-level hierarchical linear models were conducted to test the beneficial effects of GS treatment on decreasing criminal justice involvement. Propensity scores were used to control for the pre-existing differences among women due to the quasi-experimental nature of the study. Men's arrest outcomes were used to control for confounding at the program level. Results show that women in more GS treatment programs had a lower risk of drug-related arrests, and women in more GS treatment programs who also completed treatment had a significant reduction in overall arrests from 2 years before- to 2 years after treatment, above and beyond the reduction in arrests due to treatment alone. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.