JAIL ONLY REHAB FOR MANY MASS. JUNKIES

Laurie Fernandes' downward spiral began a decade ago when she started
booting heroin with her dad.

"He said he wanted to make sure I wouldn't get anything that would kill
me," Fernandes explained from inside the women's unit at the Dartmouth
House of Correction. "It made sense at the time."

Her dad died of an overdose in April 2002, but her uncontrollable smack
cravings lived on. Over the past year, Fernandes, 34, has lost custody of
her five children and been in and out of the Dartmouth jail five times.

"Every time I've come in here, I've been withdrawing," she says.

Her sad cycle of withdrawing behind bars and having no rehab options upon
release is becoming more common among addicts as the number of treatment
beds statewide has been slashed from 1,000 to less than 500 in the past year.

In Bristol County, where heroin has ravaged hardscrabble cities like
Taunton, Fall River and New Bedford, the Dartmouth jail is struggling to
keep up with an influx of dopesick junkies. Bernie Sullivan, spokesman for
Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, said the jail's 24-bed infirmary sees 150
withdrawing addicts monthly.

Dartmouth jail caseworker Vanessa Amaral says "the recidivism rate is very
high" because there's no post-jail treatment options.

"Practically every inmate I work with has a heroin addiction," Amaral says.

Taunton Detective Sgt. Mike Grundy, who has been on that city's vice unit
for 12 years, says "95 percent" of the prostitutes he arrests are heroin
addicts and that "60 to 70 percent" of hookers and junkies nabbed in
Taunton are reoffenders.

"They're just released back to the street," Grundy said. "It's a vicious
circle. They can't get off the stuff and they just keep committing more
crimes."

Fernandes, who survived an overdose, currently has a one-year sentence
hanging over her head and is trying to get into a secure treatment program.

She says she needs a "structured" program "away from New Bedford" where she
can get clean.

"I thought I was destined to die like a junkie, like my dad. But I don't
think I am," she says.

Authorities say eastern Massachusetts has been flooded with cheaper, purer
heroin that dealers are pushing on younger users.

In Norfolk County, where heroin hasn't always been the societal scourge as
it has in Bristol County, officials at the Dedham jail say their system has
been overrun with withdrawing addicts over the past year.

David Falcone, spokesman for Norfolk Sheriff Michael Bellotti said the
Dedham jail has seen a 40 percent increase in smack-addicted inmates since
May. And heroin detox cases in the jail's 12-bed medical unit have tripled
over the past year from four per month to 12.

"Recidivism has always been a problem, especially now where there's a lack
of beds out in the community. These guys are coming right back to us,"
Falcone said.

At the Middleton jail, 51 percent of inmates admit past heroin usage.

For Ron Correa, a 47-year-old addict at the Dartmouth jail, it's all about
"the after-care." Correa is doing his second six-month bid at Dartmouth and
says he's seen a frightening surge in young men getting hooked on heroin.

"I see these kids in their 20s and I hope they get it, because it's nothing
nice," says Correa, the twice-divorced dad of two. "I tell them, 'You don't
have to be like me. There's a much better life.' "