The proposed research examines the impact of a major social change currently occurring in the United States, publicly supported alcoholism treatment services, namely the marked ascendancy and growth of coercive referral into treatment by a variety of criminal justice institutions. This change harbors important (and as yet virtually unexamined) consequences upon (a) the social location, functions, and responsibilities of alcoholism treatment facilities (b) social handling of treatment clients, and (c) the images of alcohol problems held and promulgated by treatment specialists. This social change is increasingly casting into sharper relief the latent cultural strains underlying therapeutic and punitive approaches to alcohol problems. Therefore, it offers a rich field of study for examining fundamental dilemmas of conceptualizations, social management, and evaluation. Specifically, this project examines the processes which have led to recidivist drinking drivers being referred to alcoholism treatment and the impact these referrals have had on alcoholism treatment within study sites differing in existing judicial policies on the disposition of recidivist drinking drivers.
The research aims i nclude (a) determining the means by which the justice system deems individuals, alcohol problems appropriate for alcoholism treatment and describing these processes, (b) determining the conditions under which this exchange between the judicial and alcoholism treatment systems take place, and (c) determining and describing the impact of these coerced clients on alcoholism treatment programs which they enter. Toward these ends, a comprehensive multi-method research design in three research sites will (a) collect and review archival and documentary materials to determine alcohol treatment and judicial policy history in each site, (b) collect quantitative data on trends in courts, reliance upon referral to alcoholism treatment in lieu of other punishment options, (c) collect quantitative data on trends in client referral into alcoholism treatment, (d) observe the processes of court screening for alcoholism treatment intake screening, and (e) collect data from treatment and justice system personnel about specific referrals. Analyses will take place both within and across sites in an effort to assess the relationships between court referrals and alcoholism treatment system adaptations.
| Speiglman, R (1994) Mandated AA attendance for recidivist drinking drivers: ideology, organization, and California criminal justice practices. Addiction 89:859-68 |
| Lee, J A; Mavis, B E; Stoffelmayr, B E (1991) A comparison of problems-of-life for blacks and whites entering substance abuse treatment programs. J Psychoactive Drugs 23:233-9 |
