8. Drug Interventions

This chapter investigates what has been learned from systematic reviews on the effectiveness of drug treatment interventions in reducing crime. The chapter is based on a systematic review of systematic reviews and uses rigorous and transparent procedures for selecting and analyzing relevant studies. Published reviews were identified by searching selected electronic databases. Unpublished reviews were obtained from materials already known to the authors and by contacting prominent researchers in the field. Reviews were defined as eligible if (among other things) they were published between 1992 and 2012, available in the English language, and defined as a systematic review in the paper. The eligibility criteria also required that there were outcome measures relating to crime. The results of the analysis are presented in a summary table showing mean effect sizes and confidence intervals (when available), the significance and direction of the findings, and a breakdown of the effect of mediating factors. The analysis also includes a forest plot of quantitative results and a summary of the authors’ interpretation of the intervention and outcomes. The chapter concludes by discussing which interventions are the most effective in terms of crime reduction. The treatments included under the heading of “What works?” were ‘naltrexone treatment” and “therapeutic communities.” The single treatment type described as “promising” was “buprenorphine substitution.” Programs defined as having “no effect” or a negative effect included other forms of “substitute prescribing” (excluding buprenorphine), “reintegration and recovery” programs and “supervision and surveillance.”