Employment and Work Among Drug Court Clients: 12-Month Outcomes

Abstract

Employment contributes to drug abuse treatment success and is an important treatment outcome (Institute of Medicine, 1990). However, few tailored employment interventions are available. This project developed an employment intervention focused on obtaining, maintaining, and upgrading employment. The current study, approved by an IRB, uses 12-month outcomes to examine intervention dosage effects. Participants were 500 clients who entered two Kentucky drug court programs between March 2000 and November 2002. Measures included demographics, drug/alcohol use, criminality, employment, and education measures from the Addiction Severity Index (McLellan, Luborsky, Woody, and O'Brien, 1980) as well as specific employment measures. To examine the intervention, the number of intervention upgrading sessions attended was divided by the number of possible upgrading sessions. Session attendance percentages were then used to median split into a low upgrading group and a high upgrading group and were compared with the no intervention group. These three groups were used in a series of ANOVA and chi-square analyses to examine differences at 12-month follow-up. When employment, legal work, illegal work, and employment problems were examined for one year and 30 days at follow-up, there were significant effects for jobs in the past year, days worked at a legitimate job in both the past year as well as 30 days, and income from a legitimate job in the past year. Participants in the high upgrade group received maximum employment benefits. Since legal earnings increased and illegal earnings decreased, drug-user treatment programs and practitioners should assess and refer clients to employment interventions. Tailored employment interventions should be tested to keep drug users in treatment and to increase treatment outcome. The study's limitations are noted and future needed research is suggested.

Twelve-month employment intervention outcomes for drug-involved offenders

“…It is a predictor of treatment success and has been shown to be a significant factor in substance treatment entry (1), treatment retention (2), and treatment completion (3). Employment has also been identified as a desirable outcome of substance abuse treatment (4) and has been associated with positive treatment outcomes. In particular, employment decreases the likelihood and severity of relapse (5) and lowers depression and other mental health issues (6).…”

The Impact of Substance User Treatment Participation on Legal Employment and Income Among Probationers and Parolees

“…The short-term positive effects of treatment on subsequent labor force participation have been fairly well documented (Butzin, Scarpitti, Neilsen, Martin, & Inciardi, 1999;French et al, 1993;Hall et al, 2004;Kemp, Savitz, Thompson, & Zanis, 2004;Leukefeld, Webster, Staton-Tindall, & Duvall, 2007). Nevertheless, while some evidence points to the enduring nature of the improved work status resulting from criminal justice-sponsored treatment, with benefits lasting between 3 and 5 years (Butzin et al, 2005;O'Connell, Enev, Martin, & Inciardi, 2007;Sung, 2001), the lack of experimental control or the failure to control for baseline employment differences, or both, in these longitudinal studies renders their findings inconclusive and the contamination from self-selection highly plausible.…”

An Examination of Employment and Earning Outcomes of Probationers With Criminal and Substance Use Histories

“…Similarly, research on employment and work outcomes among drug court participants conducted by Leukefeld, Webster, Staton-Tindall, and Duvall (2007) demonstrates that participants who received an employment/skills training intervention, while mandated to drug court, reported decreased drug use and recidivism compared with the treatment as usual control group in the study. More specifically, increased dosage and exposure to the employment intervention was associated with decreased self-reported substance use and criminality among the drug court clients.…”