The Relative Role of Perceived Partner Risks in Promoting Condom Use in a Three-City Sample of High-Risk, Low-Income Women

We examined the effect of women’s perceptions of sexual partner risks on condom use. Women from three US cities (n = 1,967) were recruited to provide data on HIV risks. In univariate models, increased odds of condom use were associated with perceiving that partners had concurrent partners and being unaware of partners': (a) HIV status, (b) bisexuality, (c) concurrency; and/or (d) injection drug use. In multivariate models, neither being unaware of the four partner risk factors nor perceiving a partner as being high risk was associated with condom use. Contextual factors associated with decreased odds of condom use were having sex with a main partner, homelessness in the past year, alcohol use during sex, and crack use in the past 30 days. Awareness of a partner’s risks may not be sufficient for increasing condom use. Contextual factors, sex with a main partner in particular, decrease condom use despite awareness of partner risk factors

Promising practices for delivery of court-supervised substance abuse treatment: Perspectives from six high-performing California counties operating Proposition 36

Operative for nearly a decade, California's voter-initiated Proposition 36 program offers many offenders community-based substance abuse treatment in lieu of likely incarceration. Research has documented program successes and plans for replication have proliferated, yet very little is known about how the Proposition 36 program works or practices for achieving optimal program outcomes. In this article, we identify policies and practices that key stakeholders perceive to be most responsible for the successful delivery of court-supervised substance abuse treatment to offenders under Proposition 36. Data was collected via focus groups conducted with 59 county stakeholders in six high-performing counties during 2009. Discussion was informed by seven empirical indicators of program performance and outcomes and was focused on identifying and describing elements contributing to success. Program success was primarily attributed to four strategies, those that: (1) fostered program engagement, monitored participant progress, and sustained cooperation among participants; (2) cultivated buy-in among key stakeholders; (3) capitalized on the role of the court and the judge; and (4) created a setting which promoted a high-quality treatment system, utilization of existing resources, and broad financial and political support for the program. Goals and practices for implementing each strategy are discussed. Findings provide a "promising practices" resource for Proposition 36 program evaluation and improvement and inform the design and study of other similar types of collaborative justice treatment efforts.Court-supervised substance abuse treatment Offenders Promising practices Focus groups Proposition 36

Measuring the Long-Term Effects of Public Policy: The Case of Narcotics Use and Property Crime

The effects of treatment and legal supervision on narcotics use and criminal activities were assessed by applying newly developed time-series methods that disentangle the long-term (permanent) and the short-term (temporary) effects of intervention. A multivariate systems approach was used to characterize the dynamic interplay of several related behaviors at a group level over a long period of time. Five variables---abstinence from narcotics use, daily narcotics use (or addiction), property crime, methadone maintenance treatment, and legal supervision---were derived by aggregating information from over 600 narcotic addiction histories averaging 12 years in length. Because of the long assessment period, age was also included as a control variable. Overall, the system dynamics among the variables were characterized by long-term rather than short-term relationships. Neither methadone maintenance nor legal supervision had short-term effects on narcotics use or property crime. Methadone maintenance treatment demonstrated long-term benefits by reducing narcotics use and criminal activities. Legal supervision, on the other hand, did not reduce either narcotics use or property crime in the long run. Instead, there was a positive long-term relationship in which a higher level of legal supervision was related to higher levels of narcotics use and criminal activity. This latter finding is consistent with the observation that either narcotics use or criminal activity is likely to bring addicts to the attention of the legal system. However, these addicts, as a group, did not directly respond to legal supervision by changing their narcotics use or crime involvement except perhaps through coerced treatment. The paper explores the policy implications of these findings.public policy effectiveness, narcotics use, time series analysis, permanent and temporary effects, unit roots