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| Inmates Want Jail-Based Rehab Program |
| By The Arizona Daily Sun |
| Published: 02/06/2006 |
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If Arizona inmates at the county jail were offered an in-custody treatment program, three out of four inmates say they would benefit from it, according to a survey conducted by the Coconino County Sheriff's Office. But even with an in-custody treatment program, the community still needs to fill gaps in a comprehensive system of care that would make it more likely for alcoholic and addict offenders to regain their lives, say local officials. Sheriff Bill Pribil said, the new meth trend aside, that inmates with alcohol problems alone bolsters the idea of an in-custody treatment option. For instance, Pribil said an alcoholic woman at the hospital was taken to the jail after being disruptive. She wasn't a newcomer to the jail. And now, a recent jail survey has shown that more than half of the local inmates have used meth and more than half of the meth-users do so chronically. "If there's any way we can impact those people, I think we need to try," Pribil said. Treatment in jail is just not the procedure now, and Pribil said he cannot guarantee an in-custody treatment program will be the "magic bullet" to solve the problem. "But it seems to me after 30 years, we have to try something," Pribil said. Therefore, he has proposed to the county's jail district board a 2/10-cent increase to the county's sales tax to increase funding. The proposed increase would offer the jail, which ran at a $500,000 deficit last year, the chance not to rely on jail bed rentals and offer more space to a growing local population of inmates. The sales-tax increase would bring in another $4.1 million to the jail's $11-million budget, which would also allow the jail to consider an in-custody treatment option, Pribil has told the jail district board. The board has selected a committee to determine if a sales-tax increase should be an issue brought before the voters this election cycle. In the meantime, the jail has already begun trial runs of small-scale treatment workshops, said jail Chaplain Mike Hjalmarson. Hjalmarson said the survey results show that three out of four local inmates in the jail want treatment, which shows a recognition of the need for help. Unfortunately, Hjalmarson said one out of four of the inmates said treatment would do them no good. "There is, among some of the inmates, a sense of defeat, that nothing will help them," Hjalmarson said. But for those who do, in-custody treatment could offer that way out of the cycle of substance abuse. And to begin to address that, Hjalmarson said the jail has, this year, instituted a number of workshops and seminars for inmates. "And these things are going like gangbusters," he said. |
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