Co-occurring disorders and treatment completion comparison with the criminal justice system

Abstract

Co-occurring disorders became a growing concern in the United States beginning in the early 1980s. This research is a secondary analysis of data derived from the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHDA) Treatment Episode Data Set--- Discharges (TEDS-D), 2011. Findings are based on 343,430 individuals with co-occurring substance abuse and mental health problems. I test the following hypothesis: Individuals with co-occurring disorders who are allotted to a program through the criminal justice system are more likely to complete treatment programs rather than those referred through non-criminal justice settings. In addition, I explore the type of referrals within the criminal justice system to see which referral source yields a better outcome than other criminal justice referrals by containing more supervision. The findings indicate that criminal justice referrals have high completion rates relative to non-criminal-justice referrals. It was also found that among the criminal justice referrals the highest completion rates were associated with DUI/DWI, diversion, and prison/jails and the lowest with probation.