Editor’s note: Marcus Chatfield continues his series on Straight, Inc., the coercive treatment program for children and teens suspected of drug use that flourished with White House and NIDA support in the 1980s. In today’s entry, Marcus breaks down the flaws in the peer-reviewed research that helped cement this official legitimacy.
In “Outcome of a Unique Youth Drug Abuse Program: A Follow-up Study of Clients of Straight Inc.” (1989), Alfred S. Friedman, Richard Schwartz, and Arlene Utada claim that their report will include: “(1) the description of the study sample, (2) the outcome of the improvement that occurred between intake and follow-up, (3) the comparison of the outcome between graduates and ‘dropouts,’ and (4) the relationship of the amount of time in treatment to treatment outcome.”
However, in each of these areas the study is flawed: (a) their description of the study sample reveals major problems, such as selective sampling; (b) the intake-to-follow-up comparisons show limited correlation and also, the authors state that they are meant to measure outcome of improvement rather than actual outcome; (c) they completely fail to discuss their promised comparisons between graduates and dropouts (they also claim to discuss a comparison between “respondents” and “nonrespondents” and then omit this comparison as well); and (d) perhaps most importantly, but left unexplained, they found that “time in treatment” had no effect on drug use reductions.