Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Evans E., Hser Y.-I., Huang D. (2010). Employment services utilization and outcomes among substance abusing offenders participating in California's proposition 36 drug treatment initiative. Journal of Behavioral Health Services and Research, 37 (4), 461-476.
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the effect of California’s Proposition 36 employment services on employment, earnings, receipt of public benefits, and recidivism.
- The authors used a nonexperimental design to compare outcomes of people in drug treatment programs who have a criminal conviction and who received Proposition 36-funded employment services with outcomes of people in the same programs who did not receive proposition-funded employment services.
- The authors found that receipt of Proposition 36 employment services was associated with an increase in employment in the year after program participation. The authors also found that Proposition 36 was positively associated with the receipt of certain public benefits (public assistance and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) at three months and negatively associated with the receipt of Supplemental Security Income at three months.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because the authors did not ensure that the groups being compared were similar before the intervention. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to receipt of Proposition 36 employment services; other factors are likely to have contributed.
Intervention Examined
California’s Proposition 36 employment services
Features of the Intervention
Proposition 36 is a voter-initiated funding source for drug treatment programs that diverts drug offenders away from the criminal justice system and toward community-based substance abuse treatment centers throughout California. In addition to providing funding for substance abuse treatment services, Proposition 36 funds can also serve to provide employment and vocational training as part of substance abuse treatment. Participants that received employment services such as meeting with an employment counselor or receiving vocational training during the first three months after intake for Proposition 36 drug-treatment services were categorized as part of the treatment group in this study. On average, treatment group members spent 154 days in treatment, and 43 percent completed their Proposition 36 treatment program. Those in the treatment group spent on average more days in treatment and had a higher likelihood of completing treatment than the comparison group.
Features of the Study
The authors used a nonexperimental design to compare people who enrolled in Proposition 36 substance abuse treatment services and who received employment services with those who enrolled in Proposition 36 substance abuse treatment services but who did not receive employment services. The treatment group was defined as those that used one or more proposition-funded employment services within three months after starting substance abuse treatment. The study sample was made up of 1,465 participants randomly selected from all those receiving proposition-funded services in 2004, 192 of whom received employment services and 1,261 who did not. The authors compared the two groups on employment, earnings, receipt of public benefits, and recidivism after receiving services. The authors collected data on proposition-funded services during a follow-up interview at three months after intake; they collected data on most outcomes during an interview at 12-months after intake.
Findings
Employment
- The study found that the receipt of Proposition 36 employment services was associated with a greater likelihood of employment in the year after program participation compared with the receipt of other Proposition 36 services. • Public benefits receipt. The study found that the receipt of Proposition 36 employment services was associated with greater receipt of public assistance and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program at three months compared with the receipt of other Proposition 36 services; it was associated with lower receipt of Supplemental Security Income at three months.
Earnings
- The study did not find statistically significant relationships between Proposition 36 employment services and earnings.
Recidivism
- The study did not find statistically significant relationships between Proposition 36 employment services and recidivism outcomes.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
Although the authors accounted for many underlying characteristics of the groups being compared, they did not account for other factors that could have affected the difference between the treatment and comparison groups. For example, the authors did not account for groups’ criminal history or histories of employment or earnings more than one year before program participation. In addition, although the study does demonstrate that groups are comparable on some characteristics (such as gender, age, and education), the authors do not provide evidence that they have addressed potential sources of self-selection bias. For example, because the treatment group opted to receive employment services, group members might have differed from the comparison group in terms of motivation or other innate characteristics. Thus, the use of a comparison group of people who did not opt to receive employment services might not provide a valid picture of the program’s impacts.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because the authors did not ensure that the groups being compared were similar before program participation. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Proposition 36 employment services; other factors are likely to have contributed.
Additional Sources
Evans, E., Hser, Y. I., & Huang, D. (2010). Employment services utilization and outcomes among substance abusing offenders participating in California’s Proposition 36 drug treatment initiative. The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, 37 (4), 461-476.