The contractual governance of drug users

This study will investigate the growing phenomenon of the use of agreements that resemble contracts as a technique for governing the conduct of drug users in treatment. Such agreements typically spell out what is expected of the service user and what the service will provide in return. The aims of the study are:

to assess the extent of the use of contracts with drug users in treatment
to develop a typology of the form and content of these contracts
to examine the perspectives of both drug treatment professionals and drug users on the nature, purposes, functioning and impact of these contracts
to situate the contractual governance of drug users in the wider context of contemporary strategies of control.

There are five strands to the study:

a survey of the use of contracts in treatment settings across three regions in England;
an analysis of sample agreements used by treatment services in those regions;
interviews with drug service managers and workers in six selected drug services (approx 30 interviews);
interviews with drug users in those selected services (approx 50);
interviews with other informed observers (eg drug policy experts) (approx 10).