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You have found 77 entries after clicking the GO button or a search link in a hot topic. Starting with the most recently added or updated entries, the list shows in orange the type of entry, year the original document was published (or if one of our own documents, the year last updated), and the type of file you will download when you click on the title. In blue is the document’s title followed by a brief description.

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REVIEW 2009 HTM file
Alcohol and drug screening of occupational drivers for preventing injury

Exhaustive search finds just two rigorous studies of workplace testing for alcohol and/or drug use of people employed as drivers. For drugs there was some evidence of a long-term effect in averting injuries and deaths but in respect of both drugs and alcohol the evidence was too thin to support any particular policy.

STUDY 2013 HTM file
Criminal justice responses to drug related crime in Scotland

In one expert package, the recent history, results, achievements and possible drawbacks of Scotland's concerted attempt to engage drug-driven offenders in treatment at nearly every stage of the criminal justice system. Widening treatment access may have been the main plus, also widening entanglement in the criminal justice system the main minus.

DOCUMENT 2012 HTM file
Drug misuse statistics Scotland 2011

Statistical picture of drug misuse in Scotland in 2010/11 including treatment and criminal justice caseloads and health impacts, plus trends over recent years.

REVIEW 2012 HTM file
Drug policy and the public good: evidence for effective interventions

Review of relevant research by an international team of leading researchers offers policymakers guidance on the interventions most likely on the evidence to achieve national policy aims in respect of illegal drug use.

STUDY 2010 HTM file
Drug law resentencing: saving tax dollars with minimal community risk

In 1973, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller introduced drug law sanctions condemning relatively minor offenders to up to life in prison. In the mid-2000s the prisoners were allowed to petition for release. Very few were re-imprisoned due to new offences, suggesting the original sentences were usually not needed to protect the community from drug crime.

DOCUMENT 2012 HTM file
Will intensive testing and sanctions displace treatment?

Enforce frequent drug or alcohol testing and levy swift, certain and meaningful sanctions for substance use, and many dependent users stop using without treatment. Is this increasingly how problem use will be dealt with, or just a niche option applicable to users over whom society can exert sufficient leverage?

STUDY 2011 HTM file
An experimental demonstration of training probation officers in evidence-based community supervision

For the first time this Canadian randomised study has shown that training probation officers in the risk-need-responsivity model of offender supervision can not only improve their skills and sharpen their practice, but also reduce the recidivism of the offenders they supervise, among whom substance use was a major issue.

REVIEW 2012 HTM file
Assessing the effectiveness of drug courts on recidivism: a meta-analytic review of traditional and non-traditional drug courts

Synthesising the results of 154 studies, the most thorough and extensive investigation of the crime-reduction credentials of drug courts finds the evidence bulky but lacking quality, yet sufficient to support courts for adult illegal drug users if not (or not yet) teenagers or drink-drivers.

STUDY 2011 HTM file
Targeting dispositions for drug-involved offenders: a field trial of the Risk and Needs Triage (RANT)

Drug-involved offenders have different needs related to their offending (in particular for addiction treatment) and pose different levels of risk for a return to crime after usual sentencing options. This US study confirmed that needs and risk are independent dimensions which can be measured and used to adjust sentencing to reduce recidivism.

REVIEW 2011 HTM file
Adult drug courts

Recent US drug court studies reviewed for the US Congress by its audit and evaluation office support their crime-reduction credentials, though most studies are methodologically weak. Generally too, benefits outweigh costs, but not consistently.


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