Salt Lake City Considers Alternatives to Incarceration of Drug Offenders May 6, 2005
Communities in Action Salt Lake County officials recently heard plans to open a receiving center for drug offenders, which would divert 50 to 70 percent of inmates to treatment instead of jail, the Salt Lake Tribune reported April 20.In his annual report to the Salt Lake County Council, Patrick Fleming, director of the county substance abuse division, proposed opening a 50-bed wing at Oxbow Jail, where those arrested for drug offences would remain for three to five days. After this triage period, offenders may sent to effective community-based treatment programs, which will be losing $173,000 starting in July due to changes in the state's funding system.
If approved, the plan to reduce the strain on the county's overfilled Adult Detention Center would cost $700,000 yearly for contracting and transportation, but the remainder of the operation would be covered by Volunteers for America.
Fleming's report notes that incarcerated offenders stay twice as long and cost the county twice as much as those in treatment, and that recidivism is reduced by treatment.
