People in prisons and jails are four times more likely to have a substance use disorder than the general public, yet services for this population are sorely lacking, according to experts at George Mason University. They have developed several screening tools designed to improve substance use treatment in the
Both treatment and justice agencies would benefit from screening for criminal justice risk, as well as substance use disorders, according to Faye Taxman, PhD, of the university’s Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence! (ACE!) program in Fairfax, Virginia. “More than 30 percent of offenders could benefit from residential treatment, but less than 5 percent in prison, jail or community corrections have access to such services,” she says.
Taxman spoke recently about
The Risk-Needs-Responsibility (RNR) Simulation Tools developed by the ACE! team focus on both individuals as well as systems as a whole. One tool developed by Taxman and her colleagues looks at a person’s history of involvement in the system—age of first arrest, number of times a person was arrested, incarcerated, on probation and rearrested—to assess how likely it is that the person will return to the system. Taxman notes this risk assessment is clinically relevant, since it signifies the intensity and structure of services needed.
“People who score moderate to high-risk also tend to have more behavioral health problems and patterns,” Taxman says. “They tend to have more risky behaviors and more entrenched substance abuse and mental health problems.” The tool allows practitioners to recommend appropriate substance use treatment programs for individual prisoners, based on their specific needs.
The ACE! team also has recently launched an online tool for clinicians working with the criminal justice system to assess whether their substance abuse
“The RNR tools help clinicians evaluate their own programs, and shows them how to strengthen them,” notes Taxman. Currently, the available services for offenders in the community are often not consistent with the risks and needs of offenders, she says. The tool takes into account the level of substance use disorders and mental health needs of the population. There is a minimal cost to store data in the RNR tool, depending on the size of the organization.
The RNR model asks how restrictive the setting is (such as prison or a halfway house), how often drug testing is done, what treatment consists of, whether other issues are addressed (such as anger management, domestic violence or employment services), what the rewards and punishments are for treatment successes and failures, the level of staff training and how closely the treatment manual is followed. Read More…