The San Benito County Behavioral Health Department received a much-needed boost for a sober-living program that should help many individuals clean up their lives while curtailing recidivism rates of local inmates.
The California Emergency Management Agency sent notice that the deficit-ridden county would receive a $200,000 grant – for 18 months – to provide aftercare treatment for inmates released from the San Benito jail.
The funds will allow the county to partner with a sober-living partner where people released from jail can live in transition before moving out on their own – along with offering peer mentoring to other locals who are on parole or probation and struggling with substance-abuse issues.
San Benito County’s Behavioral Health Department employees deserve credit for putting together the successful application, with collaboration from a probation department-led committee, for an additional tool that can help stem negative impacts from Assembly Bill 109. That legislation calls for releasing thousands of non-violent convicts statewide while handing off many of them to local jails.
In response to prison crowding, it is expected to hamstring local jail capacities and push former inmates to the streets, making it especially important to curb destructive behaviors before some ex-convicts backslide.
As behavioral health Director Alan Yamamoto aptly noted, an astounding 80 percent of inmates tend to have substance-abuse problems when they leave custody – which indicates lacking support and rehabilitation while incarcerated.
If they don’t get necessary help, they likely will continue down an abusive path that could lead to further criminal activity and deterioration.
It is in everyone’s best interest – the department, individuals and community as a whole – to offer support in the arduous path toward sobriety.
The alternative is to neglect the additional, released inmates – not a good idea, especially considering substance abuse often correlates directly with criminal activity and the revolving door experienced by so many convicts that heavily influences a California recidivism rate of around 65 percent.
Many gang members in particular will tend to fall back into their former lifestyles if they don’t have a foundation for change.
So there should be two major motives for the public to support funding toward such rehabilitation – a moral outlook, offering help to people down on hard times, and the pragmatic view that recognizes societal benefits such as improving public safety.
