Allegheny County, PA, Inmate Treatment Program Reduces Recidivism

In Allegheny County Jail, 84% of male inmates and 90% of female inmates have substance abuse problems upon incarceration, and more than half of the monthly 200 inmates released soon after detoxification return within a year.

Since September 2002, Allegheny Correctional Health Services, a nonprofit subsidiary of the Allegheny County Health Department, has been combating this problem with its popular substance use disorders treatment program, which has enrolled 165 inmates and reduced recidivism. Since last December, only 18 of the 111 inmates who had graduated or left the program since its inception have returned to jail, and only 6 of those returned for drug-related offenses.

Qualified inmates have been arrested for drug-related charges and completed detoxification, and are due to be in jail for a minimum of six months. To participate in the program, eligible inmates go through an application process and a waiting list, where 63 inmates presently wait their turn.

There are only 25 beds in the separate treatment unit of the jail, where inmates spend three to four months in intensive treatment, participating in six hours daily of both group and individual therapy. Then inmates move to the 76-bed step-down treatment unit where therapy lasts only one to three hours per day. This transitional program is also used by those with substance abuse issues for whom the intensive program is either unnecessary or too difficult.

The program, funded by a $250,000 federal grant, costs the county health department $150,000 annually.

Health department director Bruce Dixon cites the program's longer-than-average time frame as one of the keys to its success. Inmate Roger Wade described the program as "the only thing that ever worked for me," and other inmates agreed that the unique self-reliance training they received in treatment was lacking in other programs.

(6/25/2004)