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Examining the Impact of the Innovative Opioid Court Model on Treatment Access and Court Outcomes for Court
Katherine S Elkington1, Margaret E Ryan, Cale Basaraba
1From the Center for Behavioral Health and Youth Justice, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY (KSE, MER); Mental Health Data Science, New York Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY (CB, RD, DA); Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, NY (KSE, MER, CB, RD, DA, MMW); Mental Health Data Science, Columbia University and New York Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY (MMW); Center for Justice Innovation, New York, NY (AG, MC); Data Coordinating Center, Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY (HFA); and Division on Substance Use Disorders, Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY (EVN).
Objective:
The opioid intervention court (OIC) is an innovative, pre-plea treatment court to facilitate rapid linkage to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) for people at risk of overdose. This study compares participants in OIC and participants with opioid use problems in a traditional drug treatment court model on (i) initiation for any substance use (SU) treatment, (ii) initiation of MOUD, (iii) number of days to MOUD initiation, and (iv) retention in the OIC program/retention on MOUD.
Methods:
We used administrative court records from n = 389 OIC and n = 229 drug court participants in 2 counties in New York State. Differences in outcomes by court were assessed using logistic, multinomial, or linear regressions.
Results:
After adjusting for current charge severity, gender, race/ethnicity, age, and county, OIC participants were no more likely to initiate any SU treatment but were significantly more likely to initiate MOUD (81.2% OIC vs 45.9% drug court, P < 0.001) and were more quickly linked to any SU treatment (hazard ratio = 1.68, 95% confidence interval = 1.35-2.08) and MOUD (hazard ratio = 4.25, 95% confidence interval = 3.23-5.58) after starting the court. Retention in court/MOUD was higher among drug court participants and may speak to the immediate sanctions (eg, jail) for noncompliance with drug court directives as compared with opioid court, which does not carry such immediate sanctions for noncompliance.
Conclusions:
These analyses suggest that the new OIC model can more rapidly link participants to treatment, including MOUD, as compared with traditional drug court model, and may demonstrate improved ability to immediately stabilize and reduce overdose risk in court participants.
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