This study examined the effect of a residential drug and alcohol therapeutic community program on subsequent criminal convictions among young people who had different levels of offending prior to treatment.

It found that, for young people who had 30 days of treatment, in the five years following, there was a substantial reduction of 36% in the number of convictions for the group who had been the most serious offenders before entering the service.

The paper concluded that such programs may be an effective strategy to reduce recidivism among the small group of serious offenders responsible for a disproportionately large number of crimes.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235222001519

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