The Effect of Ankle Monitors during Drug Treatment on Drug Treatment Completion, Substance Abuse and Recidivism in Women in Dallas, Texas

Introduction: Drug courts are an alternative approach for drug offenders in the criminal justice system to reduce recidivism and drug use in adults. Residential community-based treatment has been shown to provide positive results for women in Drug Courts, but absconding from treatment is a common problem. In response to absconding, a number of Dallas County Drug Courts introduced mandated GPS tracking ankle monitors to increase drug treatment completion and drug court effectiveness.

Methods: We evaluated the effect of ankle monitors on drug treatment completion, positive urinalysis at any time in the first 6 months of drug court, continued drug use 6 months after starting drug court, and re-arrests/warrants in 31 women referred to residential drug treatment by the Dallas County Drug Courts using bivariate and multivariate logistic regression.

Results: Overall, 77.4% of women completed drug treatment, and 51.6% of women were re-rearrested or had a warrant for arrest 6 months after starting treatment. Women with ankle monitors were 0.05 times less likely to be re-arrested or have an active arrest warrant compared to women without ankle monitors (OR 0.05, p-value 0.04). We also found a positive but not significant association between ankle monitor use and treatment completion (OR 9.9; p-value 0.14).

32.3% of women had a positive urinalysis at some point during the first 6 months post-treatment and 16.1% was still using drugs and/or alcohol 6 months post-treatment. Ankle monitors did not affect positive urinalysis (OR 4.2; p-value 0.36) or continued drug use 6 months after starting drug court (OR 0.32; p-value 0.42).

Conclusion: Ankle monitors appear to reduce re-arrest, but not drug use, among women in Dallas Count Drug Courts. Drug Courts might consider using GPS-tracking ankle monitors to reduce re-arrests. Further research in a larger study population is needed to evaluate the long-term effect of ankle monitors on drug court completion, drug use and re-arrests/warrant 1 year after starting treatment.