Drug program at jail gets a reprieve

An in-house drug treatment program at the Salt Lake County Jail received a stay of execution Tuesday.

Sheriff Aaron Kennard planned to close the Corrections Addictions Treatments System program Thursday, a week before the mandated closure of another unit at the jail. But before he could pull the plug on a program highly favored by Utah's judges, the County Council offered a 30-day pardon.

County officials don't want to let the program die. It's a key component to the County Offender Reform Act, a pilot program for the state, Mayor Peter Corroon said.

"It's a great program, and if we can keep it in the jail, we should," Corroon said.

County officials want to pull low-risk inmates out of the county jail and put them into treatment programs, an idea they hope will close the revolving door of a jail filled with criminals hooked on drugs.

Councilman Mark Crockett said he's concerned the council is going forward with alternatives to jail incarceration without data to decide who should be in treatment and who should do hard time. Now county officials will have 30 days to comb through jail files for information on what type of inmates are at the jail and who would best be served by drug treatment or jail time.

The sheriff said he is struggling to find ways to incarcerate prisoners with a full jail and a County Council mandate to cut 300 beds by July 1. But no matter how many inmates are put into treatment, the jail will always be full, Corroon said.

That's why the county should focus on rehabilitating people who are less likely to reoffend after going through intensive treatment, said Pat Fleming, director of the county's substance abuse division.

"Let's make it full with the right people," Fleming said.

Fleming is scrambling to come up with a way to continue the CATS program somewhere else in the community if Kennard closes the program after the 30-day reprieve.

The CATS program is just one of many options county officials are using to treat offenders in an attempt to reduce the recidivism rate. The Day Reporting Center, a place where county jail inmates can swap jail time for outpatient treatment, has been up and running for about two months.

Each program in the County Offender Reform Act is essential. Take one out and other programs suffer, Councilman Joe Hatch said.

Hatch said CATS shouldn't even be up for closure. He said the county is in a philosophical battle with Kennard — one side believes treatment is the answer while the other believes criminals should be behind bars.

Ultimately the decision will be up to the County Council, which oversees the budget and sets the cap on jail beds.

"Why would you throw out an effective drug treatment program out of the jail?" Hatch said. "We've tried incarceration, we know it's extremely expensive and we know drug treatment programs are cost-effective and work."

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