Answer Addiction

Tag: inmates and addiction

  • Woman Sues To Continue Methadone Treatment In Prison

    Woman Sues To Continue Methadone Treatment In Prison

    “I am afraid for my life and my safety if the Bureau of Prisons withholds medicine that I know I need,” the woman said in court filings. 

    For Stephanie DiPierro, methadone has been a lifesaving treatment. It helped her get sober from an opioid addiction in 2005, and since then has helped her stay away from illegal opioids.

    Now, DiPierro is suing the federal prison system for her right to use methadone while she serves her sentence. 

    “Methadone gave me my life back,” DiPierro wrote in court filings, according to The New York Times. She said that without methadone, her life is at risk. “I will lose control of my addiction and I will relapse, overdose and die.”

    Next month, DiPierro, who has bipolar disorder and anxiety, is set to start serving a year-long prison sentence. However, she argues that the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ ban on inmates (other than pregnant women) using methadone amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. 

    In court filings she wrote, “I am afraid of what it will mean to lose my methadone treatment at the exact moment when I am put in the most anxiety-producing situation of my life. I am afraid for my life and my safety if the Bureau of Prisons withholds medicine that I know I need.”

    DiPierro is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. ACLU staff lawyer Jessie Rossman says that in addition to being cruel and unusual punishment, denying DiPierro methadone treatment is discrimination. 

    “The Bureau of Prisons is denying her a reasonable accommodation for her disability, and also discriminating between different disabilities. Inmates with chronic conditions like diabetes are allowed to continue to take their medically necessary treatment,” Rossman said. “What’s now coming across loud and clear is that the standard of care to treat opioid use disorder is medication-assisted treatment, and it’s ineffective and unlawful to prevent individuals from accessing their treatment and medication for that disease.”

    Jails and prisons generally do not allow methadone. Some argue that this is because methadone is an opioid that can be diverted and abused, while others argue that it’s an arbitrary rule based on discrimination against people with substance use disorder. 

    Last year, Rossman represented a Massachusetts inmate who was looking to continue methadone treatment in county jail. A district court judge in Massachusetts issued a ruling that denying inmates methadone treatment is in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act and the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

    Former head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Michael Botticelli, executive director of the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center, told The New York Times that the ruling would likely set the stage for far-reaching change. 

    “One thing this ruling says is that, one way or another, either by legislation or by legal mandate, jails and prisons are going to have to do this,” he said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Prison Consultants Accused Of Helping Convicts "Scam" Their Way Into Rehab Programs

    Prison Consultants Accused Of Helping Convicts "Scam" Their Way Into Rehab Programs

    Residential drug abuse program (RDAP) fraud is causing an already-crowded program to become even more difficult to enter as waiting lists grow.

    An entire industry of “prison consultants” have been reportedly helping individuals entering the prison system to fake their way into prison drug rehabilitation programs for many years, according to a report from The San Francisco Chronicle.

    This problem was brought to light recently when a Connecticut grand jury indicted three of these consultants, who are accused of coaching convicts who should have been ineligible for the Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP) on how to get in.

    Programs like RDAP are designed to help inmates with substance use disorders to detox and begin their recovery journey, rewarding them with a reduced sentence if the program is completed.

    The prison consultants in the Connecticut case are accused of telling individuals without substance abuse problems to arrive at prison while intoxicated and then fake withdrawal symptoms. This type of fraud has been an open secret for years, according to current and former prison consultants.

    However, this is the first time that anyone has been charged for facilitating RDAP fraud. 

    Prison consultants, often former inmates or prison employees, charge thousands of dollars for “insider knowledge” about how to best survive a stint behind bars. My Federal Prison Consultant president and retired federal Bureau of Prisons employee Jack Donson compared the industry to the “Wild West.”

    According to the website for National Prison and Sentencing Consultants, Inc., much of what they do is helping defendants and their lawyers keep sentences short.

    “Our singular goal is to reduce the amount of time our clients spend in federal prison,” the website reads. “NPSC works with federal defendants and their attorneys with federal plea agreement review, federal sentencing guideline calculations, pre-sentence investigation report review and analysis, sentence mitigation, prison designation and RDAP assistance and analysis.”

    Though much of the advice given by these consultants is perfectly legal, it appears that there is an increasing problem with instruction on how to cheat the system.

    RDAP fraud is causing an already-crowded program to become even more difficult to enter as waiting lists grow.

    Close to 10% of the prison population participated in RDAP in 2018 while thousands more waited their turn in the hopes of getting up to a year knocked off of their sentence. Plus, graduates can spend the last six months of their remaining sentence in a halfway house.

    According to former federal prosecutor Christopher Mattei, RDAPs are being used more and more by individuals convicted of white-collar crimes—a trend that could damage the credibility of the program and the justice system as a whole.

    “It undermines the public’s confidence that all people when they go before a court for sentencing will be treated fairly,” Mattei said on the issue. “People who know how to game the system know how to get the benefits, whereas people who are struggling with addiction don’t know all the angles to play.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Grant Provides Medication-Assisted Treatment To Inmates Leaving Jail

    Grant Provides Medication-Assisted Treatment To Inmates Leaving Jail

    Inmates in the treatment program also leave jail with counseling appointments in place and other sobriety supports.

    The Wisconsin legislature is giving out $1.3 million in grant money that counties around the state will use to provide medication-assisted treatment for inmates who are leaving jails. 

    The grants, administered through the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, allow people who are ready to be released to receive an injection of Vivitrol, which can block opioid receptors in the brain and make people less likely to abuse opioids. Inmates in the program also leave jail with counseling appointments in place and other sobriety supports, according to Action News. 

    “This is another great opportunity for an individual who wants to make a change to have the resources to be able to do it, and do it at a cost that they can afford,” said Todd Delain, sheriff-elect in Brown County, Wisconsin, which includes Green Bay. “The Vivitrol is one piece of it. The counseling and ongoing monitoring treatment is the other part of it, because if you don’t have both, they’re probably not developing the skills and tools necessary to overcome it long-term.”

    The program aims to help address the vulnerabilities of people who have just been released from a correctional facility, said Paul Krupski, director of opioid initiatives at the Department of Health Services.

    “Specifically to the criminal justice population, they have a very high rate of opioid overdose and opioid overdose deaths upon release in the first 60-90 day period that they are out,” he said.

    Inmates seem eager to take advantage of the program, according to Correct Care Solutions, which provides health care services to jails. 

    Jessica Jones, the company’s regional operations manager, said, “It really needs to be something the patient wants to do. It needs to be a lifestyle change they’re ready to make. The medication is really 50 percent of this. The psych-social component is what they really need to be ready to dedicate themselves to.”

    A pilot program has been taking place at the Brown County Jail, in partnership with Prevea Health. Over the past 18 months, that program has shown success, said Prevea Health President and CEO Dr. Ashok Rai.

    “I remember the first person, when one of our physicians came to me and said, we had our first graduate and that person got a job,” Rai said. “The whole intent here was to try to help people.” 

    Vivitrol, in combination with therapy, can be a powerful tool for people looking to get into recovery, he said. 

    “To get to the heart of addiction is really to get to counseling and what psychological aspect, as part of that disease, led to the addiction,” Rai said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com