This story was reported and written by our media partner Capital News Service.
Virginia has established an initiative to help address an increased need for recovery services among those arrested for drug-related nonviolent offenses.
Virginia’s Community Corrections Alternative Program, a sentencing option for offenders under state custody, is now bolstered by the Recovery Court Pathway Initiative, an innovation from the Virginia Department of Corrections meant to provide an alternative to incarceration.
Participants are those found to be in higher need of close supervision for treatment, accountability and structure instead of a prison setting. This initiative comes in the wake of a Virginia-declared opioid epidemic crisis.
VADOC announced the initiative in August and stated it allows recovery courts with limited resources to refer their participants with substance use disorders for “intensive residential treatment services as a continuum of care.” It includes pathways like cognitive and anger management programming, vocational skills training and education.
Before this initiative, recovery courts focused on outpatient treatment services.
A person is enrolled into recovery court by a judge's request, according to state law. To this end, VADOC has partnered with several circuit court judges across Virginia, the department stated.
After sentencing, VADOC evaluates defendants for CCAP placement while probation and parole officers follow up and initiate assessments to identify a participant’s risks and needs, stated VADOC.
The recovery initiative lasts 24 weeks, in addition to CCAP’s 22 to 48-week timeline, and consists of three phases: orientation, acquiring recovery skills through counseling, and maturation, VADOC stated in its press release.
Probation officers provide regular participant progress reports to the court and do video check-ins as requested. After successful completion, participants return to their designated recovery courts to continue with supervision and outpatient services, according to VADOC.
DATA SHOWS PROGRAMS REDUCE RECIDIVISM
CCAP offers several education opportunities, including General Education Diploma classes provided by a full-time teacher, and vocational training, including masonry and welding.
“Depending on what pathway, when they come to us if they need a GED, we have a full-time GED teacher, so we’ll put them in GED classes,” said Shannon Fuller, CCAP superintendent at Appalachian Mens’ Detention Center in Russell County. “But while also here we have substance use counselors.”
The facility currently houses 97 participants but has a capacity of 106.
The programming involves frequent counseling, classes and other exercises that involve “retraining your brain,” said one current participant.
Michael Lester is a CCAP and pathway initiative participant enrolled in welding vocational training at Appalachian Mens’ Detention Center. He became a participant after his arrest last year. Lester, 36, began using illicit substances at 18. He used both heroin and methamphetamine and overdosed on the former.
“I couldn’t have one without the other,” Lester said. “I was going down a real dark road with it.
It took paramedics about 90 minutes to bring him back from the overdose, he said.
Lester bounced from place to place without a steady home. He wants to create a different living environment when he completes the program and is released back into the community.
Lester hopes to achieve this with the help of his girlfriend, a fellow recovery court participant and plans to change his friend groups.
He also wants to avoid identified triggers, including excessive stress and certain smells that, in the past, drove him to use substances. The program helps him identify and deal with these triggers as a part of cognitive programming, also known as cognitive behavioral therapy.
The approach helps individuals identify and challenge thought patterns, such as rationalizations or all-or-nothing thinking, according to Virginia Recovery Centers. People can learn to alter their emotional responses and behaviors related to substance abuse.
Lester has stayed busy for just over five months in the program. He has secured an Occupational Safety and Health Administration certification, obtained a forklift certification and participated in an anger management program. He was also baptized and attends church in the facility.
The skills could provide opportunities after the program is done. A local company offered Lester a welding position and will work with him as he navigates the program’s requirements and societal reentry needs.
Other participants mirror Lester’s achievements, Fuller said. Six months without substances can have an impact.
“Their brains are doing a lot better than when they first got here,” Fuller said. “We can see the changes – they look more healthy, a lot of them gain weight after they come into our facility and they just look better and feel better.”
Available state data shows that prison alternative programs such as CCAP result in better personal outcomes and also lower rates of recidivism, which is when a person relapses into criminal behavior.
Those who successfully graduate from CCAP have an approximately 4.5% recidivism rate in the 12 months after graduation, according to Fuller. Those who do not graduate have a recidivism rate of 32.4%.
Diversion programs like CCAP save the state $19,234 annually per person, according to a legislative report. The cost of imprisonment in state-run prisons is almost double, at an average of $107 per person, per day or just over $39,000 annually.
CCAP funding comes, in part, from the federally-funded State Opioid Response grant distributed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
VADOC Director Chad Dotson has lauded the initiative as part of the department’s innovation in finding strategic measures to help those in recovery successfully transition back into society as they work through substance use disorders.
“This new initiative also highlights our cooperation with Virginia’s court system and the VADOC’s mission of providing effective supervision, which creates long-lasting public safety for Virginians,” Dotson stated in a recent press statement.
Pathway initiative services are available at four Virginia CCAP facilities: Appalachian Men’s Detention Center in Russell County; Brunswick Work Center in Lawrenceville; Chesterfield Women’s Detention and Diversion Center in Chesterfield County; and Cold Springs Correctional in Greensville County.
A fifth CCAP facility in Harrisonburg is not part of the initiative as it focuses on a different population, according to VADOC.
Those in need of substance use disorder counseling or treatment can call 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
Capital News Service is a program of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Robertson School of Media and Culture. Students in the program provide state government coverage for a variety of media outlets in Virginia.
