Steven Belenko

Many clients under probation supervision have opioid use and other substance use disorders that are not adequately identified or addressed through treatment referrals. Positive interorganizational relationships between probation departments and community-based treatment providers are vital for the seamless identification of treatment needs and service linkages. This chapter describes an organizational intervention protocol aimed at strengthening interorganizational relationships between agencies and introduces a novel staged model for depicting the evolving role of staff practitioners during the organizational intervention. The Empowering Local Experts Via Active Translational Engagement (ELEVATE) model, highlights how the intervention protocol was designed to leverage staff expertise in understanding the interorganizational relationships, identifying points of interface that merit improvement, and advancing targeted treatment linkage enhancements. The ELEVATE model details knowledge creation and co-production in a real-world implementation science context in community corrections and has implications for implementation science projects aimed at strengthening cross-system linkages.

Background: Despite the heightened risk for substance use (SU) among youth in the juvenile justice system, many do not receive the treatment that they need. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which youth under community supervision by juvenile justice agencies receive community-based SU services and the factors associated with access to such services. Methods: Data are from a nationally representative sample of Community Supervision (CS) agencies and their primary behavioral health (BH) partners. Surveys were completed by 192 CS and 271 BH agencies. Results: SU services are more often available through BH than CS for all treatment modalities. EBPs are more likely to be used by BH than by CS. Co-location of services occurs most often in communities with fewer treatment options and is associated with higher interagency collaboration. Youth are more likely to receive services in communities with higher EBP use, which mediates the relationship between the availability of SU treatment modalities and the proportion of youth served. Conclusion: Findings identify opportunities to strengthen community systems and improve linkage to care.

Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts (JDTC) emerged in the mid-1990s as a potential solution to concern about substance use among youth in the juvenile justice system (JJS). Despite substantial research, findings on the JDTC effectiveness for reducing recidivism and substance use remain inconsistent, hampered by methodological problems. In 2016, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention published research-based JDTC Guidelines for best practices, and funded technical assistance for implementation and a multisite national outcomes study among JDTCs implementing the Guidelines. Ten sites were originally selected for this study, with a JDTC and Traditional Juvenile Court (TJC) participating. In two sites, moderate- to high-risk youth were randomized to JDTC or TJC, and in eight sites, a regression discontinuity design assigned moderate- to high-risk youth to JDTC, and other youth to TJC. Findings from four sites with sufficient cases and follow-up rates indicated that JDTCs reduced cannabis use, increased access to mental health services, and reduced recidivism. However, the effects were small to moderate, with positive impacts mainly observed among high-risk youth. The impacts of JDTCs may have been attenuated because Guidelines implementation was inconsistent across courts, and some TJCs implemented elements of the Guidelines, blurring the distinction between JDTCs and TJCs.

Criminal behavior and substance abuse are closely connected and many offenders have substance use disorders and related problems. Reducing drug-related crime in this population requires attention to the determinants and processes of both recovery from substance use disorders and desistance from crime, and the provision of individual and social services that can promote and facilitate recovery and desistance. Traditional criminal justice system models do not generally focus on both substance use and criminal behavior, nor do they address the individual and social factors that can affect desistance and recovery. Drug treatment courts represent a therapeutic model of justice that have become popular in many countries over the past two decades. This paper argues that the drug court is an important criminal justice innovation that has the potential to promote both desistance from criminal behavior and recovery from drug use. The drug court model incorporates and implements many of the processes and interventions that are theoretically associated with desistance and recovery. Despite some limitations and the need for additional research, drug courts have the potential to address many of the factors associated with reductions in both drug use and criminal behavior.

This article presents findings from a multisite cluster randomized trial of a structured organizational change intervention for improving HIV testing services in jails and prisons. Matched pairs of prison and jail facilities were randomized to experimental and control conditions; all facilities received baseline training about best practices in HIV testing and other HIV services and selected an area of HIV services on which to focus improvement efforts. The experimental facilities formed local change teams and were provided external coaching based on the Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment (NIATx) process improvement model. Difference-indifference analyses indicate a significant relative increase in HIV testing in the experimental compared to the control condition. Meta-analyses across the matched pairs indicated a small to medium effect of increased testing overall. The results indicate that the local change team model can achieve significant increases in HIV testing in correctional facili...

Given the substantial need for and relatively low access to effective substance use disorder treatment for people on probation, it is critical to understand organizational and staff attitudes that may hinder or facilitate treatment linkage and willingness to adopt evidence-based practices. This study used survey data from a large county probation department to assess staff members’ attitudes and perceptions regarding their organization’s climate for innovation, role of substance use disorder treatment, support for evidence-based treatment, and organizational barriers to change. Probation staff were open to incorporating treatment into probation supervision, expressed support for rehabilitation models, and agreed that they would adopt innovations if required or they found them to be appealing. However, they expressed some concerns about the level of agency support for innovation and collaboration. Attitudes and perceptions varied by staff characteristics. Implications for expanding organizational change and adoption of evidence-based treatment practices in probation are discussed.

Few studies investigating the validity of marijuana use have used samples of truant youths. In the current study, self-reports of marijuana use are compared with urine test results for marijuana to identify marijuana underreporting among adolescents participating in a longitudinal brief intervention for drug-involved truant youths. It was hypothesized that marijuana underreporting would be associated with alcohol underreporting and engaging in sexual risk behaviors. The results indicated marijuana underreporting was significantly associated with self-denial of alcohol use, but not associated with sexual risk behavior. Also, there was an age effect in marijuana use underreporting such that younger truant youths were more likely to underreport marijuana use, compared to older truant youths. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.