SECTION ON LAW & ETHICS
Director: David Festinger, Ph.D.
TRI’s Section on Law & Ethics has dual missions of using rigorous experimental methods to improve the lives of drug and alcohol involved offenders and to advance the ethical protections of clinical research participants. Consonant with the overall mission of TRI, the primary objective of Law & Ethics is to translate research findings into real world applications and changes in policy that benefit clients, their families, and society.
The Law & Ethics Section is recognized for its innovative and systematic line of research on model programs, interventions, and policies involving the intersection of drugs and crime. Section scientists were among the first in the nation to experimentally examine the key elements of drug courts, DUI courts and other problem-solving courts designed to improve public health and public safety. Findings emanating from this research have led to novel strategies for reducing substance abuse and criminal recidivism among criminal justice populations.
Although not limited to the criminal justice population, the Section’s focus on human subject protections is heightened by the doubly vulnerable nature of substance abusing offenders. Through the application of experimental methods, Section investigators have explored innovative strategies for reducing perceived coercion, improving the process of informed consent, and identifying safe and fair remuneration procedures for individuals who participate in substance abuse and criminal justice research.
Law & Ethics is home to years of research on Internet sites where teenagers may be able to purchase drugs without a prescription, or may be exposed to pro-drug and alcohol messages. Along with the Section on Adolescents, these investigators are examining the extent to which adolescents suffering from substance abuse or dependence are influenced or harmed by these new cyber threats.
Because Law & Ethics is one of TRI’s most translational sections, many of its seminal research findings have been incorporated into empirically derived products, including the Risk and Needs Triage (RANT™), a tool that helps drug court professionals assign clients to the most suitable and effective levels of treatment and supervision, the Treatment Research Institute–Court Evaluation Program (TRI-CEP™), which assists court administrators to evaluate and improve their drug courts’ effectiveness, and WebSafe, an on-line workshop designed to help parents and educators protect children from Internet drug threats.
