Heroin Addiction Recovery Program (HARP)

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

The Heroin Addiction Recovery Program, or HARP, is a very intensive and demanding recovery program which specifically addresses addiction from heroin only. (Other programs in the jail focus on all addictions to include alcohol.) It utilizes a myriad of therapeutic, medical and educational approaches to overwhelm the addict with options and tools to use that best fit their individual recovery path and what works best for them. It is known that the best time to give someone help is at the very time they ask for it. For that reason, another distinction of HARP that makes it unique is that participants are both “pre” and “post” sentence which allows someone ready to recover to enter the program on the very same day they are incarcerated. Understanding the adverse effect heroin addiction has on family and loved ones HARP includes special family night sessions where families and loved ones can come into the jail to be with the HARP participants so they can also begin the recovery process as a family. HARP invests much time in trying to break down the stigma of being an addict as well as the accompanying stigma of being a “convict” by opening its doors to a multitude of print media and video news organizations to educate the public about this crisis as well as to start building the community support needed to win the battle against it. The outcomes of the program are measured using statewide recidivism data as well as information from post release clients about their improved quality of life. The statistical way the program’s effectiveness is measured is through the software program, CORIS. CORIS provides statewide data about recidivism. We define recidivism as any new arrest that could incur a jail and or prison sentence. Currently our graduates have a 14% reactivation rate as compared to a 77% county average rate.