Research by Author & Topic

Publications by John Roman on Substance Abuse

While a large body of empirical research indicates that marriage is associated with criminal activity, to date little research exists on the effects of relationship status on a population of offenders returning to their communities. This study uses data on over 650 former prisoners to examine the impact of relationships on recidivism, substance use, and employment during this critical period of re-entry. Findings suggest that marriage cut the odds of recidivism and drug use in half when compared to those in casual relationships.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and the Corporation for Supportive Housing Ohio Office developed a pilot program that provides permanent supportive housing to individuals released from several Ohio prisons. The Pilot intends to reduce recidivism and homelessness/shelter usage and decrease the costs associated with multiple service system use. The Urban Institute is evaluating the Pilot to explore whether it is meeting its intended goals. This Interim Report covers the first year of the evaluation—describing the Pilot and its eligibility requirements; the UI evaluation methods; and the characteristics and preliminary outcomes of the Pilot's first 57 clients.

The primary goal of this research is to estimate the costs and benefits of serving misdemeanor DUI offenders in the Anchorage Wellness Court (AWC), a specialized court employing principles of therapeutic jurisprudence. The Urban Institute conducted an impact and a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to estimate the effectiveness of the AWC. The study focused on the impact of the program on reducing the prevalence and incidence of new criminal justice system contact. Costs were collected to estimate the opportunity cost of the AWC. Recidivism variables were monetized to estimate the benefits from crime reductions. Outcomes were observed at 24, 30, 36, and 48 months.

Despite a growing consensus among scholars that substance abuse treatment is effective in reducing recidivism, strict eligibility rules have limited the impact of current models of therapeutic jurisprudence on public safety. This research effort was aimed at providing policy makers some guidance on whether expanding this model to more drug-involved offenders is cost-beneficial. We find that roughly 1.5 million arrestees who are probably guilty (the population most likely to participate in court monitored substance abuse treatment) are currently at risk of drug dependence or abuse and that several million crimes could be averted if current eligibility limitations were suspended and all at-risk arrestees were treated.

In this Washington Examiner commentary, John Roman explains why automatically putting juvenile offenders in adult detention is a mistake: it can turn the teenagers into hardened criminals and sends the message that society has written them off.

Reclaiming Futures (RF) is an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that seeks to improve outcomes for drug-involved youth in the juvenile justice system. The Urban Institute and Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago conducted biannual surveys in each of the ten communities participating in the initiative (December 2003 to June 2006) measuring the quality of juvenile justice and substance abuse treatment systems in each community. Positive and significant changes were reported in all ten communities. In several communities, most quality indicators measured by the evaluation improved significantly during the course of the initiative.

John Roman, a senior research associate in the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, explores the challenges interpreting increases in the FBI's crime statistics for 2005.

Juvenile justice officials across the United States are embracing a new method of dealing with adolescent substance abuse. Importing a popular innovation from adult courts, state and local governments have started hundreds of specialized drug courts to provide judicial supervision and coordinate substance abuse treatment for drug-involved juveniles. The number of youth affected by these new courts is relatively small, but the programs are spreading rapidly and their presence is changing how practitioners and policymakers think about adolescent drug use. Despite the increasing popularity of juvenile drug courts, researchers have only begun to test whether they stop or reduce teen substance abuse more effectively than other programs. Juvenile Drug Courts and Teen Substance Abuse is the first book to examine the ideas behind juvenile drug courts and explore their history and popularity. The editors have assembled top justice policy experts to assess the evidence supporting juvenile drug courts and to guide the next generation of evaluation research. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the role of the juvenile justice system in addressing teen drug problems. [View the corresponding press release.]

[JoinTogether.org] Drug courts are the leading edge of a new wave of court practice and it is critical that researchers do more than just evaluate the return to the public on the huge public investment in these programs. Researchers must also consider whether the huge public investment in drug court research has been worthwhile, whether it is worth continuing, and in what form. There are some answers already in the literature that can help to improve drug courts, but this type of research is extremely difficult to do well. With a more formalized research process funneled through an objective accreditation process, best practices and future advances can be institutionalized. Accreditation will allow drug courts to evolve and innovate while at the same time taking them out of the self-promotion business. That combination will benefit everyone.

This evaluation examined the impact of Maryland's Break the Cycle (BTC) initiative, designed to reduce drug use and crime among probationers and parolees. The evaluation was based on a quasi-experimental design and used statistical procedures to control for systematic differences between BTC and non-BTC jurisdictions. The designs and exclusive reliance on secondary data from existing computer systems did have limitations. The evaluation concluded that BTC was an effective strategy for reducing drug arrests among probationers and parolees with drug conditions.