Individual and community-level socioeconomic factors and drug court outcomes: Analysis and implications

Despite varying reports of success in reducing drug crime and relapse, the overall perception within the substance abuse field is that drug court treatment is a generally effective approach. However, the large majority of evaluation findings reported come from large drug court programs in metropolitan regions with many available service and treatment options. These programs may benefit by the socioeconomic strength of the communities in which the drug courts are situated. How this community-based treatment may operate in smaller, less densely populated areas with fewer treatment and service options, like many communities throughout Kentucky, has not been investigated prior to this study. An awareness of how these factors at both the individual and community level may impact the capability of drug courts to promote recovery and reduce drug-related recidivism is necessary so that adequate efforts to address these concerns can be infused within the drug court programs' designs prior to full implementation.; This study investigated the relationships between the outcomes of relapse, program retention and completion, and recidivism and predictors of community disorganization and individual socioeconomic factors through the use of a multilevel analytic model. The conceptual framework of the study referenced the theoretical perspectives of social conflict, social disorganization, and social control to account for the relationships specified, and also the proposed moderating effect of geographic isolation from metropolitan regions.; The primary finding from analyzing during-program relapse data was that although education and income were significantly related to relapsing in drug court in the level-one model, once county-level variability was included in the analyses, these relationships disappeared. Retention in drug court was clearly related to the individual variables of interest, and apparently unrelated to social context. Education and income were both associated with an increased likelihood of graduation in at least the initial 1st level model, while employment's contribution to the outcome of graduating from drug court varied by the type of estimation method. Finally, where one lives, how stable the community is, and how geographically isolated the participant's community is was found to directly influence the likelihood of post-program recidivism. Implications of these findings are discussed.