The Federal Bureau of Prisons undertook an evaluation of its residential drug abuse treatment program by assessing the post-release outcomes of inmates who had been released from BOP custody. The evaluation, conducted with funding and assistance from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, reveals that offenders who completed the drug abuse treatment program and had been released to the community for three years were less likely to be re-arrested or to be detected for drug use than were similar inmates who did not participate in the drug abuse treatment program.
The findings for recidivism and drug use three years after release are consistent with the positive results in the preliminary report based on six months following release. Drug treatment provided to incarcerated offenders reduces the likelihood of future criminal conduct and drug use as well as increasing the employment rate among women. This study is consistent with the results of other evaluations of prison drug treatment; however, these findings are bolstered by the use of multiple treatment sites, a rigorous research design, a large sample size, and the opportunity to examine the effects of drug treatment on men and women separately. Both the three-year outcome report and the six-month preliminary report can be downloaded here.
TRIAD Drug Treatment Evaluation Project Final Report of Three-Year Outcomes: Part I
| Chapter 1 | Introduction |
| Chapter 2 | A Review of Recent Studies of High Intensity Adult Correctional Drug Treatment Programs - The Problem of Selection Bias and Possible Solutions |
| Chapter 3 | A Review of Gender Differences Among Substance Abusers |
| Chapter 4 | Description of Drug Treatment Programs and Services |
| Chapter 5 | Research Design |
| Chapter 6 | Description of Sample |
| Chapter 7 | Treatment Entry and Completion |
| Chapter 8 | Analyses and Results |
| Chapter 9 | Summary and Conclusions |