Editorial: Allegheny County Jail opioid treatment has positive potential
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People incarcerated at the Allegheny County Jail will receive medication for opioid use disorder.
The move comes as a result of an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and includes a $10,000 payment to an individual who was jailed in Allegheny County and denied the methadone he was receiving before his arrest. That was a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“Too many individuals with opioid use disorder cycle in and out of jails because they can’t find a path to recovery. This agreement will ensure that Allegheny County Jail provides access to medications that can help break that cycle,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
It should never be up to a jail to decide what medical conditions are worth treating. Opioid use disorder is acknowledged by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is treated by the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins. It isn’t a fictional condition touted on a supermarket tabloid or cured with snake oil.
If a doctor prescribes insulin, a jail cannot shrug it off as unnecessary. The same should be true of medications that fight other diagnoses, including profound substance abuse.
Allegheny County Councilwoman Bethany Hallam, a member of the Jail Oversight Board, can speak to the experience of detoxing in the county jail after her 2016 arrest.
“I didn’t think I was going to survive that, and knowing it didn’t have to be that way,” she said.
But the stress on an individual and the question of civil rights isn’t the only reason jails and prisons should be providing the medication. They need to do it to cut down on opioid use and recidivism.
A 2022 study pointed to lower rates of return to incarceration for those who received medication for opioid use disorder during their time in jail. It wasn’t a magic potion — more like a vaccine. While 62.5% of men at a county jail that did not treat opioid use disorder were arrested again, that number fell to 48.2% for those who did.
This would be a positive if it only meant less crime. It doesn’t. But it does mean less public expense for all of the agencies involved, from police to courts to the jails. It could spread outward to social services and the thousands of families in the region impacted by the opioid epidemic. It could save the lives of people who might overdose.
Allegheny County has to contract with a provider for opioid treatment within six months. Within two months, it has to evaluate incarcerated individuals for opioid use disorder. Perhaps most critically, jail personnel are no longer allowed to change or stop treatment that already has been prescribed.
The county and the jail should not view this as a corner into which they have been backed. Instead, they should embrace it as an opportunity to make a difference.