Series: A RIsing Blight - Day 3: The Solution - Part 3C

Rehabilitation

PROGRAMS AT TWO JAILS OFFER HOPE

Resources Scarce, And Need Is Great

ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. - After years of meth use, Bobby Hornback finally got
help for his addiction - at the Hardin County Jail, where he was finishing
eight years for making the drug.

He was fortunate.

Hornback entered one of just two state-funded programs for about 6,000
state inmates serving sentences in county jails. The six-month programs
serve just 55 inmates at a time.

"Now I can see myself living sober and doing something with my life instead
of wasting away," said Hornback, 29, who graduated from the program Dec. 17
and was granted parole.

Louis B. Lawson, the Hardin County jailer who sought the program at his
jail, said he wanted to keep addicts from leaving and getting into trouble
again.

"It was a revolving door," Lawson said. "There's just no way you can
continue to house people on these drug charges."

As many as 9,800 of about 12,300 inmates in state prisons are estimated to
have a drug or alcohol problem. Treatment in those prisons is being
expanded, using faith-based volunteers, inmate "peer" counselors and
others, said Christopher Block, who oversees treatment for prison inmates.

But he said that will reach less than 33percent of inmates who need it. As
many as 80percent could use the help, he said.

The corrections department spends about $3.9million a year in state and
federal money on treatment services, Block said.

The state has added about $2million to its treatment budget in recent
years, but Corrections Commissioner John Rees is trying to find more money
to expand it, department spokeswoman Lisa Lamb said.

Block's predecessor, Rick Purvis, said the state prisons have never put
enough money into treatment.

"Doing anything in the corrections system is like swimming upstream," said
Purvis, whom the Fletcher administration replaced this year. "Corrections
has always had a bare-bones budget."

The only other state-funded jail program is at the Christian County Jail,
which offers a treatment program for 23 men and eight women. The programs
at the two jails are run by local regional mental-health agencies.

"We could use more beds - particularly for women," said Cheryl Shook,
program coordinator for the Hardin program, called Bridges Substance Abuse
Program.

The treatment program is voluntary. Inmates must request it and pass a
screening process to determine whether they appear to be good candidates.

Shook said inmates in the program appear to do well after being released
from custody, but a study of outcomes has not been completed.

Some jails offer their own programs but they vary in scope, corrections
officials said.

Bowling Green public defender Allen Graf said methamphetamine arrests in
that region have increased his caseload dramatically and he does not have
time to track down scarce treatment beds for clients.

Sometimes judges are willing to release inmates from jail to a residential
treatment facility but no opening can be found, Graf said.

"My clients end up spending more time in jail," he said.

And without treatment, Graf and others said, many offenders return to jail
or prison.

"We need more places," Graf said. "We need more of them and we need more
long-term treatment. The 28-day program just doesn't cut it. Long-term
programs are what the judges require."

Some say that despite multiple arrests and jail or prison sentences on drug
charges, the Hardin program was their first chance at treatment.

"I've never been in no programs in over 10 years of prison," said David
Price, 36, an Eastern Kentucky man jailed for possession of OxyContin.

Price thinks the Bridges program may help him break his cycle of drug abuse
and arrests and resume life with his two daughters, ages 10 and 16.

"When I first started the program, I didn't figure I had a problem, but I
sure do," said Price, who graduated from the treatment program Dec. 17 and
was released on parole. "I've got to make a change."