Integration of the Therapeutic Workplace in Drug Court

Official Title: “Integration of the Therapeutic Workplace in Drug Court”

Drug Courts were developed as a therapeutic alternative to incarceration of drug-involved offenders by providing 'judicially supervised' drug abuse treatment and probation for nonviolent offenders in lieu of criminal prosecution and incarceration. Outcome studies have shown that drug courts have modest effects on participation in drug abuse treatment, drug use, and employment. The Therapeutic Workplace intervention is an effective employment-based treatment that integrates abstinence reinforcement contingencies in a work setting, intended to treat individuals with histories of drug addiction and chronic unemployment. Under this intervention, drug abuse patients are hired and paid to work. To promote abstinence, patients are required to provide drug-free urine samples to gain and maintain daily access in the workplace. In this way, patients can work and earn salary, but only as long as they remain drug abstinent. Patients using drugs and lacking job skills participate in an initial training phase to initiate abstinence and establish computer data entry skills. Once abstinent and skilled, patients are hired into an income-producing Therapeutic Workplace data entry business. Given that many drug court participants suffer from long histories of drug addiction and unemployment, the Therapeutic Workplace could be ideal for this population. This proposes of this clinical trial is to evaluate the Therapeutic Workplace intervention in a Drug Court.

Intervention(s) in this Clinical Trial

• Behavioral: Therapeutic Workplace Intervention
  • Therapeutic workplace intervention is intended for individuals with drug addiction and chronic unemployment. Participants are invited to participate in work and receive salary for participation and productivity contingent upon drug abstinence.

Arms, Groups and Cohorts in this Clinical Trial

• No Intervention: Standard Drug Court
  • Participants received standard services from drug court
• Experimental: Drug Court plus Therapeutic Workplace
  • Participants receive standard drug court services plus therapeutic workplace intervention

Inclusion Criteria:

• Enrolled in Drug Court
• Report using any opiates and/or cocaine during 30 days prior to their arrest
• Unemployed

Exclusion Criteria:

Individuals are excluded if they:

• Are at imminent risk of suicide
• Have a psychotic disorder that may limit their workplace functioning or their ability to provide informed consent

Gender Eligibility for this Clinical Trial: Both

Minimum Age for this Clinical Trial: 18 Years

Maximum Age for this Clinical Trial: N/A

Are Healthy Volunteers Accepted for this Clinical Trial?: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Lead Investigator: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) NIH

Information obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov on February 12, 2012

Link to the current ClinicalTrials.gov record. http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT00607360

Study ID Number: 05-0865-F2L

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00607360

Health Authority: United States: Federal Government