Kentucky Voices

JAIL DRUG PROGRAM NEEDS CITY FUNDING

The addiction recovery program at Lexington detention center is in trouble.

The Hope Center, which has been operating the program with little
financial support from either the city or the judicial system, needs
$175,340 yearly to keep the recovery program going.

Already stretched to the limit by other demands for its services, the
Hope Center has notified the mayor, the Urban County Council and
Lexington judges that it will no longer provide addiction recovery
assistance unless new funds come available.

The program stopped accepting new clients July 1, and all services
will be discontinued Sept. 30. The Urban County Government has helped
some over the past several months, but the program is not included in
the 2005-2006 budget.

The state will not release $57,000 it has committed for the next year
because it is contingent on the city fulfilling its commitment.

Recovery programs have proven to return $7 to society for each dollar
spent on treatment. Criminal charges then markedly decrease as do
health care, judicial and mental health care costs. This doesn't
include the incredible personal benefits to the prisoners, who become
responsible, self-reliant and productive citizens.

The Kentucky Treatment Outcome Study concluded that substance abuse
treatment saved $4.16 for every dollar spent, and this did not
include the wages earned when the clients became working, taxpaying citizens.

Since 1995, 85 percent of the 1,200 clients in the Hope Center's
12-step recovery programs have been in jail. The program returned
more than 500 addicted graduates to society with a 53 percent
long-term success rate, and 95 percent of them are working members of society.

In two years, the same type of Hope Center recovery program
established at the jail has graduated 118 prisoners, and only 15
percent returned to jail while the rearrest rate for the general
inmate population has been 47.5 percent.

It costs only $15 a day to treat each prisoner at the jail, but it
costs $55 to house them. If we can keep this program going and keep
more than 50 percent of its clients out of jail, this alone would
result in savings of $1 million to Fayette County every year.

The program works, and what an investment. If the program cannot
continue with the staff now there, it is likely that the Hope
Center's involvement will end. And it is unlikely that Lexington
could get the program going again without considerable time and
effort and a lot more money. That's why it is critical that help is
provided now.

The jail program was started in good faith with assurance that there
would be community help. State government wants to help now but the
state budget is frozen, and city government is in a budgetary crisis.

As a volunteer member of the Hope Center board for more than 15
years, I have observed the incredible contribution its programs have
made to Central Kentucky.

Furthermore, the citizens of Central Kentucky have contributed
millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours. Why
can't city government keep these programs running? The city should
prioritize the programs it supports and fund those with proven track records.

The jail recovery program is one of those, and it needs support now.