Eligibility, any sex, with Antisocial Personality Disorder or Substance Use Disorder. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.
Results — posted to ClinicalTrials.gov
Per-arm endpoint measurements with 95% confidence intervals where reported. Source: trial results section.
Risk for Criminal Recidivism (Criminal Thinking)Primary· 6 months (post-baseline)
The Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (56 items) was administered to assess criminal thinking. The measure includes scales of Mollification, Cutoff, Entitlement, Power Orientation, Super-optimism, Cognitive Indolence, and Discontinuity . Scores on these scales were summed to create a General Criminal Thinking score, which has been validated as an overall index of recidivism risk. Higher scores equate to more criminal thinking. Scores were converted to a T-score metric (M=50, SD=10), calculated in reference to norms from samples of incarcerated offenders.
Group
Value
95% CI
Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT)
53.66
49.2 – 58.1
Usual Care (UC)
53.30
48.7 – 58.0
Alcohol UseSecondary· 6 months (post-baseline)
The quantity and frequency of patients' self-reported alcohol use in the past 6 months, measured with the Timeline Follow-Back interview that was administered at the 6-month follow-up interview.
Group
Value
95% CI
Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT)
94
90 – 100
Usual Care (UC)
95
90 – 100
Drug UseSecondary· 6 months (post-baseline)
The quantity and frequency of patients' self-reported drug use in the past 6 months, measured with the Timeline Follow-Back interview. It was administered at each time point to calculate for the past 6 months total number of days using any drugs (marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, heroin, other opiates, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, inhalants, or hallucinogens).
Scale A of the Measures of Criminal Attitudes and Associates (MCAA; Mills, Kroner, \& Forth, 2002) was administered at each interview to quantify participants' associations with criminal peers, a strong predictor of criminal recidivism (Mills, Kroner, \& Hemmati, 2004). Participants were asked to consider the four adults (excluding family, co-workers, or other residents in treatment) with whom they spend the most free-time. A count variable was created by summing the number of friends for which the participant answered yes to any of the questions of criminal involvement (possible range=0-4, wh
Group
Value
95% CI
Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT)
0.43
0.2 – 0.8
Usual Care (UC)
0.28
0.1 – 0.6
Employment Problem SeveritySecondary· 6 months (post-baseline)
The Employment module of the ASI was administered at each timepoint to assess problem severity in this domain, using composite score indices (range 0 to 1); higher scores indicate greater problem severity.
Group
Value
95% CI
Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT)
0.58
0.5 – 0.7
Usual Care (UC)
0.61
0.5 – 0.7
Alcohol Use Problem Severity.Secondary· 6 months (post-baseline)
The Alcohol module of the ASI was administered at each time point to assess problem severity in this domain, using composite score indices (ranging from 0 to 1); higher scores indicate greater problem severity. ASI composite scores such as this have long been used to provide internally-consistent evaluations of a patient in a particular problem area (Grahn \& Padyab, 2020).
Group
Value
95% CI
Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT)
0.09
0.0 – 0.2
Usual Care (UC)
0.06
0.0 – 0.1
Legal Problem SeveritySecondary· 6 months (post-baseline)
The Legal Status module of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI; McLellan et al., 2006) was administered at each interview to assess legal problem severity. The latter is based on a composite index derived from five items: Are you presently awaiting charges, trial, or sentence? How many days in the past 30 have you engaged in illegal activities for profit? How serious do you feel your present legal problems are? (0=Not at all, 4=Extremely) How important to you now is counseling or referral for these legal problems? (0=Not at all, 4=Extremely) How much money did you receive from illegal sources in
The Family/Social module of the ASI was administered at each timepoint to assess problem severity in this domain, using composite score indices (range 0 to 1); higher scores indicate greater problem severity.
Group
Value
95% CI
Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT)
0.1
0.1 – 0.2
Usual Care (UC)
0.1
0.0 – 0.2
Risk for Criminal Recidivism (Criminal Thinking)Primary· 12 months (post-baseline)
The Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (56 items) was administered to assess criminal thinking. The measure includes scales of Mollification, Cutoff, Entitlement, Power Orientation, Super-optimism, Cognitive Indolence, and Discontinuity . Scores on these scales were summed to create a General Criminal Thinking score, which has been validated as an overall index of recidivism risk. Higher scores equate to more criminal thinking. Scores were converted to a T-score metric (M=50, SD=10), calculated in reference to norms from samples of incarcerated offenders.
Group
Value
95% CI
Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT)
50.96
46.5 – 55.4
Usual Care (UC)
49.80
45.2 – 54.4
Alcohol UseSecondary· 12 months (post-baseline)
The quantity and frequency of patients' self-reported alcohol use in the past 6 months, measured with the Timeline Follow-Back interview that was administered at the 12-month follow-up interview.
Group
Value
95% CI
Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT)
94
90 – 100
Usual Care (UC)
94
90 – 100
Drug UseSecondary· 12 months (post-baseline)
The quantity and frequency of patients' self-reported drug use in the past 6 months, measured with the Timeline Follow-Back interview. It was administered at each time point to calculate for the past 6 months total number of days using any drugs (marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, heroin, other opiates, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, inhalants, or hallucinogens).
Scale A of the Measures of Criminal Attitudes and Associates (MCAA; Mills, Kroner, \& Forth, 2002) was administered at each interview to quantify participants' associations with criminal peers, a strong predictor of criminal recidivism (Mills, Kroner, \& Hemmati, 2004). Participants were asked to consider the four adults (excluding family, co-workers, or other residents in treatment) with whom they spend the most free-time. A count variable was created by summing the number of friends for which the participant answered yes to any of the questions of criminal involvement (possible range=0-4, wh
Group
Value
95% CI
Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT)
0.37
0.2 – 0.7
Usual Care (UC)
0.43
0.2 – 0.8
Adverse events — posted to ClinicalTrials.gov
Time frame: Adverse event data was collected in the 12 months post-baseline for each participant..
Reporting threshold: 0%.
Adverse-event reports describe events observed during the trial — not all are caused by the drug.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT) is effective for reducing risk of criminal recidivism and improving other health-related outcomes (substance use, mental health, housing, and employment problems) among justice-involved Veterans entering residential mental health treatment programs in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Publications & conference data
7 peer-reviewed publications reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):
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Publications: Europe PMC API search by NCT ID, retrieved 10 June 2026
Drug + disease cross-links: matched in real time against Drug Landscape's normalised drug + company + condition tables
Sponsor: as reported to ClinicalTrials.gov by VA Office of Research and Development
Last refreshed: 27 July 2023
Drug Landscape aggregates and links these public records for informational use only. Always verify against the primary source before clinical or regulatory decisions. Canonical URL: https://druglandscape.com/trial/NCT02524171.