Pretrial drug testing programs were described by Neubauer (2004, p. 240) as based on several assumptions: "First, knowledge of a defendant's drug use at the time of arrest - provides an important predictor of pretrial misconduct. Second, monitoring drug use during the pretrial periods, coupled with sanctions, will reduce the risk of pretrial misconduct." This is a widely used strategy but there is evidence, said Neubauer (2004), that requiring defendants to participate in drug testing does not necessarily reduce failure to appear rates. Drug use is very common among many arrestees and pretrial misconduct is a relatively rare event. Neubauer (2004) also stated that pretrial drug testing programs have not been found able to predict which defendants will be arrested while out on bail although when drug testing is used as one component of coordinated earlier interventions for adult offenders, it does have some success. Therefore, it should be maintained.
DeJong and Wish (2000) examined the advisability of using urine tests to assess the risk of rearrest among accused individuals. They used both self-report measures of intensity of drug use and urinalysis based measures of drug use among a sample of arrestees in Washington, D.C. to examine the relationship between drug use at arrest and recidivism. Based on their analysis, they concluded that self-report measures of intensity of drug use were not significantly related to rearrest. Their data indicated that a positive urine test for cocaine was the only measure of drug that was significantly related to rearrest. They nevertheless noted that future research on how to improve procedures assessing drug use and dependence in offenders is still needed.
Research conducted by Goldkamp, Gottfredson, and Weiland (1990) suggested that the criminological literature does show an association between drug use and crime. Some have hypothesized that drug use might be a significant pre...