The Magistrates Early Referral Into Treatment (MERIT) Pilot Program: Court Outcomes and Recidivism

Abstract

Diversion programs for drug offenders have proliferated in the last decade in the belief that treatment of underlying drug use will decrease an individual's criminal activity. The NSW Magistrates Early Referral Into Treatment (MERIT) program diverts adult offenders with significant drug problems, on bail, from the court to a 3-month intensive drug treatment program. This article reports on the criminal justice outcomes of the Lismore MERIT Pilot Program. Findings indicate that participants who completed the program were significantly less likely to reoffend, took longer to reoffend and received less severe sentences than those who did not complete the program. The reduction in reoffending is significantly associated with program completion even when other factors associated with recidivism are controlled for, including previous incarceration. Overall these findings contribute to the growing literature indicating that providing treatment for offenders with illicit drug problems can be an effective crime reduction strategy.

Factors affecting criminal recidivism among participants in the Magistrates Early Referral Into Treatment (MERIT) program in New South Wales, Australia

“…In contrast to Passey et al [15], we have identified principal drug as an important predictor of recidivism. Controlling for all other factors in the model, participants with cannabis as their principal drug had a lower risk of recidivism than participants with heroin or methamphetamine as their principal drug.…”

“…This study replicates the previous finding that completion of MERIT is associated with a reduction in recidivism [12,15]. Compared to program non-completers, Adjusted for all other factors in the model.…”

“…The MERIT program has been subject to various evaluations since its commencement as a pilot program in five courts in a regional area in 2000 [8,[12][13][14][15][16]. However, despite the emphasis on reducing drug-related crime through MERIT, there have been relatively few analyses of recidivism among MERIT participants.The most recent analysis reports that acceptance and completion of MERIT was associated with a 12 percentage point reduction in the likelihood of committing any offence when using a matched comparison group [12], while an earlier study of the MERIT pilot program found that participants who completed the program were less likely to re-offend and took longer to re-offend than those who did not complete the program [15].…”

“…However, despite the emphasis on reducing drug-related crime through MERIT, there have been relatively few analyses of recidivism among MERIT participants.The most recent analysis reports that acceptance and completion of MERIT was associated with a 12 percentage point reduction in the likelihood of committing any offence when using a matched comparison group [12], while an earlier study of the MERIT pilot program found that participants who completed the program were less likely to re-offend and took longer to re-offend than those who did not complete the program [15]. In that analysis, the principal drug nominated by a participant was not found to be significantly related to recidivism [15].This finding is inconsistent with the literature [1] and may have been due to analysis of principal drug as a continuous, rather than categorical, variable.…”

Mental illness and intellectual disability in Magistrates Courts in New South Wales, Australia

“…The results of the current study confirm the efficacy of the introduction in NSW Magistrates Courts and elsewhere of innovative court‐based diversion programmes (Hunter & McRostie 2001), through which individuals with ID and/or mental health problems and other disorders (such as substance abuse) may be diverted from the CJS into other options including community services, hospitals and rehabilitation. One such example is the Magistrates Early Referral Into Treatment programme (Passey et al. 2007).…”