Results of a national survey of substance use treatment services for youth under community supervision.

Background: Despite the heightened risk for substance use (SU) among youth in the juvenile justice system, many do not receive the treatment that they need.

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which youth under community supervision by juvenile justice agencies receive community-based SU services and the factors associated with access to such services.

Methods: Data are from a nationally representative sample of Community Supervision (CS) agencies and their primary behavioral health (BH) partners.

Impact of implementation interventions to improve substance use service delivery on recidivism among justice-involved youth.

Substance use disorders (SUD) are prevalent among justice-involved youth (JIY) and are a robust predictor of re-offending. Only a fraction of JIY with substance use problems receive treatment. This paper describes the impacts of system-level efforts to improve identification and referral to treatment on recidivism of JIY.

The comparative effectiveness of Core versus Core+Enhanced implementation strategies in a randomized controlled trial to improve substance use treatment receipt among justice-involved youth.

Background: Most justice-involved youth are supervised in community settings, where assessment and linkage to substance use (SU) treatment services are inconsistent and fragmented. Only 1/3 of youth with an identified SU need receive a treatment referral and even fewer initiate services. Thus, improving identification and linkage to treatment requires coordination across juvenile justice (JJ) and behavioral health (BH) agencies.

Using structured implementation interventions to improve referral to substance use treatment among justice-involved youth: Findings from a multisite cluster randomized trial.

Introduction: Youth involved in the justice system have high rates of alcohol and other drug use, but limited treatment engagement. JJ-TRIALS tested implementation activities with community supervision (CS) and behavioral health (BH) agencies to improve screening, identification of substance use service need, referral, and treatment initiation and engagement, guided by the BH Services Cascade and EPIS frameworks. This paper summarizes intervention impacts on referrals to treatment among youth on CS.

The Missing Link(age): Multilevel Contributors to Service Uptake Failure Among Youths on Community Justice Supervision.

Objectives: Youths in the juvenile justice system often do not access needed behavioral health services. The behavioral health services cascade model was used to examine rates of substance use screening, identification of substance use treatment needs, and referral to and initiation of treatment among youths undergoing juvenile justice system intake and to identify when treatment access is most challenged. Characteristics associated with identification of behavioral health needs and linkage to community services were also examined.

Bridging Systems to Implement HIV/STI Programming Within the Juvenile Justice System: Strengths and Challenges of a Local Change Team Approach.

Justice-involved youth are at risk for HIV/STIs but do not access services. The complex challenges of improving the delivery of health-related services within juvenile justice (JJ) settings warrant exploration of strategies to close this service gap. This study describes the successes and challenges of utilizing a local change team (LCT) strategy comprising JJ and health agency staff to implement HIV/STI programming in JJ settings, across six counties in six states in the U.

A System-Level Intervention to Encourage Collaboration Between Juvenile Justice and Public Health Agencies to Promote HIV/STI Testing.

Justice-involved youth are at high risk for HIV and STIs, and justice agencies are uniquely poised to offer HIV/STI testing. However, testing in these settings is not routine and represents a missed opportunity. This study describes a system-level implementation intervention designed to increase access to HIV/STI testing through juvenile justice (JJ) and public health agency collaboration across six counties in six states in the United States.

Recidivism Among Justice-Involved Youth: Findings From JJ-TRIALS.

Recidivism, and the factors related to it, remains a highly significant concern among juvenile justice researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. Recent studies highlight the need to examine multiple measures of recidivism as well as conduct multilevel analyses of this phenomenon. Using data collected in a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded Juvenile Justice-Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS) cooperative agreement, we examined individual- and site-level factors related to 1-year recidivism among probation youth in 20 sites in five states to answer research questions related to how recidivism rates differ across sites and the relationships between individual-level variables and a county-level concentrated disadvantage measure and recidivism.

HIV/STI Service Delivery Within Juvenile Community Supervision Agencies: A National Survey of Practices and Approaches to Moving High-Risk Youth Through the HIV Care Cascade.

Justice-involved youth (JIY) are at considerable risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but are disconnected from treatment and prevention. Juvenile justice agencies providing community supervision (CS) are well positioned to provide HIV prevention, testing, and prompt referral to treatment for JIY. However, we lack an understanding of juvenile CS agency responses to HIV/sexually transmitted infection (STI) needs among JIY.

Gender-Specific Predictors of Recidivism Among DUI Offenders.

Objective: Women are less likely than men to be arrested for driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol or another drug, yet their proportion of DUI offenders is growing. Understanding how DUI recidivism risk varies for men and women is of practical utility for DUI assessment and intervention programs. The goals of the current study are to determine if there are different sets of predictors for men and women and whether gender-specific DUI recidivism risk scales perform better than a single recidivism scale for both men and women.

National Survey of Juvenile Community Supervision Agency Practices and Caregiver Involvement in Behavioral Health Treatment.

Objectives: This study sought to expand the sparse literature examining the extent to which family engagement interventions and the structural characteristics of juvenile community supervision agencies influence caregiver participation in youths' behavioral health (i.e., mental health and substance use) treatment.

Juvenile justice staff endorsement of HIV/STI prevention, testing, and treatment linkage.

Background: While involvement in the legal system offers an opportunity to educate, screen, and treat high-risk youth, research shows that staff attitudes toward these practices can serve as barriers to implementation. The current study investigates the degree to which JJ staff endorse HIV prevention, testing, and treatment linkage practices with youth under community supervision and examines differences between individuals who supervise youth (e.g.

Racial differences in college-student drinking.

Racial differences in drinking motives, protective behavioral strategies (PBSs), alcohol consumption, and alcohol-related problems were examined among college student drinkers (N = 443: 296 [66.8%] White, 147 [33.3%] Black).

Predictors of justice system involvement: Maltreatment and education.

Decades of research have established that experience of abuse and/or neglect in childhood is related to negative outcomes, such as juvenile delinquency. Existing research has shown that involvement in child welfare services is also related to juvenile delinquency, particularly for children who are victims of neglect. Research has also identified educational factors such as chronic absenteeism as significant predictors of involvement in the juvenile justice system.

The Benefits of Community and Juvenile Justice Involvement in Organizational Research.

The Juvenile Justice (JJ) system has a number of local behavioral health service community linkages for substance abuse, mental health, and HIV services. However, there have only been a few systemic studies that examine and seek to improve these community behavioral health linkages for justice-involved youth. Implementation research is a way of identifying, testing, and understanding effective strategies for translating evidence-based treatment and prevention approaches into service delivery.

The Juvenile Justice Behavioral Health Services Cascade: A new framework for measuring unmet substance use treatment services needs among adolescent offenders.

Overview: Substance use and substance use disorders are highly prevalent among youth under juvenile justice (JJ) supervision, and related to delinquency, psychopathology, social problems, risky sex and sexually transmitted infections, and health problems. However, numerous gaps exist in the identification of behavioral health (BH) problems and in the subsequent referral, initiation and retention in treatment for youth in community justice settings. This reflects both organizational and systems factors, including coordination between justice and BH agencies.

Psychometric properties of the Short Inventory of Problems (SIP) with adjudicated DUI intervention participants.

We used responses of two large samples of court-ordered participants from a statewide alcohol/driving safety program to investigate factor structure, score reliability, and criterion-related validity of the Short Inventory of Problems (SIP). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, using both item-level and subscore-level data, support a one-factor structure for the SIP. Internal consistency score reliability estimates were consistent across samples and high enough to warrant use for making decisions about individuals.

The Impact of Abuse Trauma on Alcohol and Drug Use: A Study of High-Risk Incarcerated Girls.

This study examines the impact of abuse trauma (physical and sexual) on alcohol and drug use of high-risk girls (12-18 years of age) who were surveyed within the first two weeks of their incarceration. One-way ANOVA analyses and Tukey post-hoc tests indicate physical abuse with a weapon was associated with higher marijuana use and number of drugs used. Sexual abuse, especially within the past year increased marijuana use, alcohol use, number of drugs used, and alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems.

Juvenile Justice-Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS): a cluster randomized trial targeting system-wide improvement in substance use services.

Background: The purpose of this paper is to describe the Juvenile Justice-Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS) study, a cooperative implementation science initiative involving the National Institute on Drug Abuse, six research centers, a coordinating center, and Juvenile Justice Partners representing seven US states. While the pooling of resources across centers enables a robust implementation study design involving 36 juvenile justice agencies and their behavioral health partner agencies, co-producing a study protocol that has potential to advance implementation science, meets the needs of all constituencies (funding agency, researchers, partners, study sites), and can be implemented with fidelity across the cooperative can be challenging. This paper describes (a) the study background and rationale, including the juvenile justice context and best practices for substance use disorders, (b) the selection and use of an implementation science framework to guide study design and inform selection of implementation components, and (c) the specific study design elements, including research questions, implementation interventions, measurement, and analytic plan.

Implementing solutions to barriers to on-site HIV testing in substance abuse treatment: a tale of three facilities.

Due to the scarcity of resources for implementing rapid on-site HIV testing, many substance abuse treatment programs do not offer these services. This study sought to determine whether addressing previously identified implementation barriers to integrating on-site rapid HIV testing into the treatment admissions process would increase offer and acceptance rates. Results indicate that it is feasible to integrate rapid HIV testing into existing treatment programs for substance abusers when resources are provided.

HIV/STI Risk Behavior of Drug Court Participants.

Drug abusing offenders have high rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI). To date, the HIV/STI prevention needs of offenders in drug court programs have been ignored. This multi-method study employed interviews to assess drug court professionals' perceptions of the need for an HIV risk reduction intervention to be integrated into the services provided to drug court participants.

Having "The Talk": Individual, Family, and Partner Factors on Unprotected Sex among Female Adolescent Offenders.

This study assessed the influence of individual age and substance use, family support and communication, and partner support and communication on the frequency of unprotected sex among incarcerated adolescent females. Subjects ( = 273) completed a survey on psychosocial correlates and risk behaviors for sexually transmitted infections (STI). Communication with male partners and sex while under the influence have a significant impact on condom use.

An evaluation of the narrowing gender gap in DUI arrests.

Although males account for the vast majority of those convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol and/or other drugs (DUI), female DUI convictions have increased over the past two decades. In this study, we examined the ratio of males-to-females who were court-mandated between the years 1992 and 2008 to attend the Mississippi Alcohol Safety Education Program (MASEP), a DUI intervention program in Mississippi. The data for this study came from MASEP records; the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS); the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR); the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS); the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS); and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an agency within the US Department of Transportation.

The Healthy Teen Girls project: comparison of health education and STD risk reduction intervention for incarcerated adolescent females.

Adolescent girls incarcerated in a state reformatory (N = 246) were recruited and assigned to an 18-session health education program or a time-equivalent HIV prevention program. Cohorts were assigned to conditions using a randomized block design separated by a washout period to reduce contamination. Post intervention, girls in the HIV risk reduction program demonstrated the acquisition of risk-reduction behavioral skills and improved condom application skill.