CAMDEN, NJ (KYW Newsradio) — Camden County Jail has been seeing success with its opioid addiction treatment program, and a new report confirms what people at the jail have long thought: their work is helping people.
The medication for opioid use disorder treatment program was unveiled in 2018, and it’s undergone several updates since then. Warden Karen Taylor says they needed to do something because more than half of the people coming into the jail have existing addictions, and many were leaving without that being addressed sufficiently.
“Those individuals are going back to your community, which is my community, and I needed to make sure that they went back better served.”
A study on the program by the Camden Coalition found that people who went through the program were about 40 percent less likely to relapse after release than people with addictions who did not. 48-year-old Kurt Stewart credits the program, saying the medication they gave him probably saved his life.
“I was a little sketchy about it,” he said. “But the doctor back there, he talked me into it.”
Officials in other counties and other states have expressed interest in implementing similar programs. Supporters, including Warden Taylor, believe those other states on the fence should start as soon as possible.
“Our program started very small, but we started,” she said. “I told a lot of my colleagues to start. Just start. Start with something small but start and you will soon find that you can do so much more.”