Coerced abstinence, an important drug rehabilitation program proved fruitful to chronic drug users as implementation of this program posses ability to reduce relapse rates among these drugs users. A coerced abstinence program mandates only abstinence through regular, predictable drug testing although most probation agreements mandate drug treatment. If the results are found negative, then the person has to undergo a brief period of incarceration.
Nowadays, the court in a sentence to criminal includes compulsory drug treatment for those found guilty of drug crimes. The convict has to regularly report its progress to the judge. The extent of progress influences later sentencing. But mostly, these programs are not for serious offenders and drug court program includes compulsory attendance in program. These programs have limited resources and aims at only treatment of offender and not abstinence. As a result the convict follows the treatment during course and after completion again starts the misuse. Although the penalty for getting caught is quite high, the chances of being tested are usually quite low.
Psychology includes a theory known as Prospect Theory which includes behavior in face of risk. According to theory the people nowadays think of how often win or lose than by how much they win or lose. Hence with respect to this theory the addicts are surely going to leave the drugs by the coerced abstinence program because the people will be more worried about the frequency of the sentence than the severity of sentence. As in this program, if a person repeatedly fails the drug test, he will immediately land himself to jail. As a result, he is surely going to use less quantity of drug so that he will be not caught easily. Even if caught by chance, he will only have to pay only penalty.
The problem with the implementation of this program is that initially, it should be implemented at a very small level sufficient to track only those who do not show up for the test. Another problem is that probation officers are over worked and police cops do not issue warrant with high priority. Then designing for a successful program is very difficult as sanction required must be swift and sure along with political feasibility. This program prescribes neither to disease model of addiction nor the moral model. In order to become successful on political platform, the program must be ideologically neutral.