A randomized clinical trial of methadone maintenance for prisoners: Results at 12 months postrelease

Received 8 October 2008; received in revised form 25 February 2009; accepted 2 March 2009. published online 01 April 2009.

Abstract

This study examined the impact of prison-initiated methadone maintenance at 12 months postrelease. Males with preincarceration heroin dependence (N = 204) were randomly assigned to (a) Counseling Only: counseling in prison, with passive referral to treatment upon release; (b) Counseling + Transfer: counseling in prison with transfer to methadone maintenance treatment upon release; and (c) Counseling + Methadone: counseling and methadone maintenance in prison, continued in the community upon release. The mean number of days in community-based drug abuse treatment were, respectively, Counseling Only, 23.1; Counseling + Transfer, 91.3; and Counseling + Methadone, 166.0 (p < .01); all pairwise comparisons were statistically significant (all ps < .01). Counseling + Methadone participants were also significantly less likely than participants in each of the other two groups to be opioid-positive or cocaine-positive according to urine drug testing. These results support the effectiveness of prison-initiated methadone for males in the United States. Further study is required to confirm the findings for women.

Keywords: Methadone maintenance, Prison, Substance abuse treatment

a Social Research Center, Friends Research Institute, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA

b Division of Criminology, Criminal Justice, and Forensic Studies, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA

c Open Society Institute, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA

d Glenwood Life Counseling Center, Baltimore, MD 21212, USA

e Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

Corresponding author. Social Research Center, Friends Research Institute, Inc., Baltimore, MD 21201, USA. Tel.: +1 410 837 3977; fax: +1 410 752 4218.

PII: S0740-5472(09)00030-0

doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2009.03.002

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