Anti-Addiction Meds and Recidivism

The WSJ reports promising results from anti-addiction medication for prisoners during confinement and after release in this article by Julie Wernau. As always with addiction treatment, keeping people in the program is a major challenge. Strong post-release supervision with real consequences is essential.

Out of 230 inmates at Middlesex [County, Massachusetts] jail who participated between 2015 and 2019, nearly all of them, 226, were alive six months after release. Recidivism among the group is one-third that for other inmates, [Sheriff Peter] Koutoujian said. He is continuing to track their success.

One-third is certainly a major effect. It would be a mistake to uncritically generalize a result from one group of released prisoners to all released prisoners, though. More research is needed. (It always is.)