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Drugs & Substance Abuse in Corrections - Jail/Prison

  • Jail staff trained to use narcan to prevent opioid overdoses (2017)

    Just before Northampton County Jail unveiled an anti-opioid antidote program this summer, staff at its work release facility in West Easton found an unresponsive inmate with blue-tinged skin.

    The inmate, who had with a history of opiate use, was making gurgling sounds, breathing slowly and had pinpoint pupils - all signs of an opiate overdose, authorities say. Staff were able to quickly get the man to a hospital in time to reverse the overdose, but the incident highlighted the need for naloxone at the county’s jail and work release facilities, authorities say.

  • At county jail, opiate epidemic forces a new way of thinking (2017)

    MANSFIELD - On a summer Friday night at the Richland County Jail, a Mansfield police officer brought in a 36-year-old Mansfield woman on a drunkenness charge.

    Police and jail staff thought she'd probably just had a little too much to drink. They could smell the alcohol on her, and she couldn't stand up on her own.

    She told jail staff her name and age and that she'd been in the jail before.

    But when she was taken into the restroom on July 14, an officer could soon tell something was wrong, something more than just drunkenness.

  • Arizona Department of Corrections launches program to fight opioid addiction in prisons (2017)

    PHOENIX - The Arizona Department of Corrections launched a new drug program this week which aims at fighting Opioid abuse head-on.

    Some inmates, nearing the end of their time in prison, can now become eligible for a Vivitrol shot. Vivitrol is an injectable drug - taken once a month - that blocks the brain's Opioid receptors. The drug is designed to keep an Opioid user from having the ability to get high for roughly a month.

  • Opioid Users Are Filling Jails. Why Don’t Jails Treat Them? (2017)

    Getting methadone in jail gave a Connecticut heroin user a firmer foothold in recovery. But fewer than 1 percent of jails and prisons allow it.

    NEW HAVEN - When Dave Mason left jail in October 2015 after his 14th criminal conviction, the odds were good that he would soon end up dead.

    A man with a longtime heroin addiction, Mr. Mason was entering one of the deadliest windows for jailed users returning to the streets: the first two weeks after release, when they often make the mistake of returning to a dose their body can no longer handle.

    Standing outside...

  • This Anti-Heroin Drug Is Now King of the Jailhouse Drug Trade (2014)

    Heroin, once the top illicit drug in prison, has been replaced by the cheaper and easier to smuggle suboxone, which was meant to help opiate addicts.

    In the decade that I spent in the prisons of New York state, you will be shocked to know that I saw a lot of drug use. Ten years ago heroin was king; its availability set the price of things as varied as pilfered chicken legs, blackmarket Newports and blowjobs. But other drugs were always available; the gangsters smoked blunts in the yard, the white guys were all on pills, and the Spanish took...

  • Pew Analysis Finds No Relationship Between Drug Imprisonment and Drug Problems (2017)

    Letter provides new 50-state data to the federal opioid commission

    On June 19, 2017, The Pew Charitable Trusts submitted a letter to the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, outlining an analysis of whether state drug imprisonment rates are linked to the nature and extent of state drug problems—a key question as the nation faces an escalating opioid epidemic. Pew compared publicly available data from law enforcement, corrections, and health agencies from all 50 states.

    Pew’s analysis found no statistically significant relationship between states’ drug offender imprisonment rates and three measures of drug problems: rates of...

  • The Lack of a Relationship between Drug Imprisonment and Drug Problems (2017)

    On June 19, 2017, The Pew Charitable Trusts submitted a letter to the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, outlining an analysis of whether state drug imprisonment rates are linked to the nature and extent of state drug problems - a key question as the nation faces an escalating opioid epidemic. Pew compared publicly available data from law enforcement, corrections, and health agencies from all 50 states.

  • The Effects of California’s Enhanced Drug and Contraband Interdiction Program on Drug Abuse and Inmate Misconduct in California’s Prisons (2017)

    The California Legislature provided the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) $10.4 million over two years to implement a contraband interdiction effort. Beginning in fiscal year 2014-2015, CDCR implemented the Enhanced Drug and Contraband Interdiction Program (EDCIP) demonstration. The program involved interdiction efforts at 11 of California’s prisons; eight receiving a moderate intervention and three receiving an intensive intervention. The EDCIP program was implemented in a manner that targeted institutions believed to have the most serious and pervasive contraband problems. The intervention introduced random monthly drug testing of roughly 10 percent of inmates at all institutions and enhanced use...