Prisons in three Pennsylvania counties are setting up methadone programs for inmates who had been on methadone maintenance before being incarcerated, the Allentown Morning Call reported Jan. 23.

Nationally, few inmates receive methadone because of concerns about prescribing an addictive drug behind bars. But Lehigh, Northampton and Berks county prison officials say methadone can help heroin addicts and prevent recidivism.

New York's Rikers Island was, for years, the only prison in the U.S. where inmates could take part in a methadone-maintenance program. But that's changing, experts say, as studies have shown the effectiveness of methadone and good results have been reported from prisons in Connecticut, Chicago, California, and New York that have established methadone programs.

''Methadone maintenance isn't a right of a prisoner unless he or she is in withdrawal and a life is at risk. It was not something prisons had to provide, but we certainly believe more jails and prisons should provide it,'' said Jody Kent, public policy coordinator for the national Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"People don't understand that heroin is a lasting addiction, a chronic condition like diabetes,'' said R. Scott Chavez, administrative vice president for the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. "You wouldn't think of not giving diabetics insulin. Studies have pretty much shown that the heroin addict must consider some replacement therapy or he will go back into heroin-seeking behavior."

Berks County prisons launched their methadone program 1-1/2 years ago, and Norrthampton started methadone maintenance for prisoners six months ago. Lehigh is the latest to establish an in-prison methadone program.