Graduates and splitees from therapeutic community drug treatment programs: a comparison.

As greater numbers of drug abusers seek treatment and drug rehabilitation program resources become more and more scarce, selection processes should become based on scientific research rather than on the intuition of a few influential personnel. Many therapeutic community drug treatment programs have a preferential policy for accepting voluntary over court-ordered commitments. Our findings indicate that such a policy discriminates against those individuals who are most likely to succeed in completing their treatment. Our data also indicate that the success of male drug addicts in completing therapeutic community drug treatment programs is associated with sociological variables. The success of women, on the other hand, is more associated with psychologically oriented concerns.