Compulsory drug treatment to reduce recidivism

Compulsory drug treatment (including drug detention facilities, short (i.e. 21-day) and long-term (i.e. 6 months) inpatient treatment, community-based treatment, group-based outpatient treatment, and prison-based treatment) was found in a systematic review without meta-analysis (Werb et al., 2016, 9 studies, N=10 699) was found to have no effect on:

• drug use or criminal recidivism over other approaches (78% of the studies)
• two studies (22 %) detected negative impacts of compulsory treatment on criminal recidivism compared with control arms
• only two studies (22 %) observed a significant impact of long-term compulsory patient treatment on criminal recidivism: one reported a small effect size on recidivism after two years, and one found a lower risk of drug use within one week of release from compulsory treatment