One of the most commonly cited statistics in overdose prevention comes from a study of people leaving Washington State Department of Corrections (WDOC) prisons: that in the first two weeks following release from incarceration, people are 129 times more likely to die of overdose compared to the general public.

Something often left out of that discussion is that scores of people enter that period of risk while still in custody—reentry doesn’t necessarily happen all at once. Many people spend the last leg of their sentence in some type of partial confinement like work release, where people go out to a job in the community during the day and return to a minimum-security facility at night. Another form is what’s known in Washington State as graduated reentry (GRE), where people wear an ankle monitor while living at home or at another approved address like a halfway house.

In any proposed prison overdose education and naloxone distribution (OEND) program, partial confinement settings are likely going to be the first that corrections departments are willing to get on board with. Those settings house people who still in custody, but who have less surveillance and more access to drugs. They’ve already reentered their communities. 

WDOC, like many corrections departments around the country, allows prisoners nearing release or transfer to partial confinement to request a naloxone kit from medical. This policy should be opt-out, rather than opt-in.

But while naloxone kits are available for people being moved from full confinement to community custody or to GRE, that’s not the case for people headed to work release—even though that and GRE are where overdose risk is highest.

The reentry centers that house people on work release have kits in common areas, but those centers aren’t the only places people are at risk. They’re at risk out in the community, at work or on furlough or on the bus. It doesn’t help in those situations that there’s naloxone sitting back at the reentry center; people need to have it with them for it to work.

Almost every public discussion about overdose prevention for prisons or jails emphasizes getting naloxone into people’s hands the moment they’re released. Providing naloxone kits to everyone going to reentry centers is really just taking that “naloxone upon release” approach and extending it to folks who got missed, which makes sense and should be done. But that approach, on the whole, is wrong.

We know overdose risk goes up upon release. But the day someone gets out of prison isn’t the day they take on that risk; it’s the day they arrive. We know that people are headed toward this for years before it actually happens; by the time they reenter the community some have been sitting for decades in the exact same known location, starving for ways to pass the time. Yet the current approach is to not engage them that whole time and then, the day they become higher-risk, hand them a brochure or have them watch a short video.

In Washington State, the overwhelming majority of prisoner overdose deaths don’t take place inside prisons. But prisons are the only really viable places to implement OEND intended for prisoners, because to be effective they need to be based in peer education.

Instead of a video or brochure, an effective prison OEND would include something more like a 40-hour class people could complete for programming credits. Once certified, they could opt to complete the training again in two years the same way people refresh certifications for CPR.

By the time people are released they’ve spent years getting their naloxone information exclusively from cops, who are notoriously misinformed. This is why so many people in prison believe that seizures are a sign of fentanyl overdose; that fentanyl overdose means you should give someone five back-to-back doses of naloxone; that naloxone should be used for non-opioid overdose; that naloxone isn’t strong enough for fentanyl; that fentanyl is in marijuana. None of these beliefs are true and some of them are harmful.

After the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department made naloxone accessible in jail common areas, it reported that people in custody successfully averted an overdose by administering the victim 10 doses of naloxone. Their only training had been a three-minute video shown at orientation. The most widely publicized example of jail OEND participants administering naloxone, from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Naloxone Custody Pilot Project in 2021, shows no clear signs of actually involving an opioid overdose at all.

It’s ineffective to withhold overdose prevention education from prisoners found out of compliance with policy. Drug use is out of compliance with policy.

There is precedent for public health groups delivering “training of trainers” education to people in custody, meaning that after some OEND participants became certified they went on to become certified to deliver that training to their peers. But like all other correctional-setting OEND, this has focused on people with imminent release dates and doesn’t actually give anyone in custody naloxone.

Peers certified by the local health department could facilitate in-depth conversations about how to distinguish an opioid overdose from a stimulant overdose, or from a mental health or medical episode. How to identify respiratory depression, when to do a sternum rub, the right way to perform rescue breathing. How naloxone actually works, why you should wait at least two minutes between doses, what causes precipitated withdrawal. 

Many programs are only open to prisoners who’ve been infraction-free for a certain amount of time. For a prison OEND to be effective, it needs to waive that restriction. Not just because making overdose prevention accessible to everyone, regardless of their disciplinary record, doesn’t encourage or enable drug use. But because it’s ineffective to withhold that education from prisoners found out of compliance with policy. Drug use is out of compliance with policy. So is helping someone who’s overdosing.

It’s the things people learn while in prison that they take with them when they go home. In prison, you can save someone’s life and get sent to the hole, while officers can prevent everyone from intervening and be protected. When someone’s just spent years being denied access to naloxone and any overdose prevention education, they’re not going to undo that conditioning by reading a brochure. Especially if they have other things to worry about that day. 

Top image and inset graphic via Washington State Department of Corrections

The post Offering Narcan to Just the Prisoners Being Released Doesn’t Work appeared first on Filter.

So far only one prison in the United States has an Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution (OEND) program that puts naloxone in prisoners’ hands directly. However, most wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel to implement one. The medical and security infrastructure to do so already exist, and naloxone could be folded in with few adjustments and at almost no cost.

Naloxone kits stored in cells and in bathrooms, or anywhere prisoners are allowed to access it, would be a massive improvement over no accessible naloxone. But naloxone is most effective when people can keep it on their person.

In contrast to OEND focused on communal access, the following routes would make naloxone accessible to individuals. This won’t work for everyone—no matter how robust a “Good Samaritan” policy is implemented, for many people in custody it’s not feasible to be associated with drug use. Which they would be if they requested naloxone, whether or not they use drugs themselves. But by the same token, allowing prisoners to take on that association if they want to—and some would—would make naloxone immediately accessible to not just them but anyone they share a cell or dorm with, without waiting years for a culture change.

Prescription and Over-the-Counter

Prisons dispense medications at what’s known as “pill line.” Or two pill lines, as is the case at Washington Department of Corrections facilities. One line is for medications that are considered a risk for diversion or nonprescription use, and operates somewhat like a methadone clinic; if you take your medication three times a day, then three times a day you go stand in pill line and take your medication under supervision when it’s your turn. The second pill line is for “keep on person” (KOP) prescriptions—medications you can take with you back to your cell to use later. Naloxone could be prescribed by the exact same process, 30 days at a time.

Since 2023, the Food and Drug Administration has approved several naloxone products for over-the-counter sale, meaning you don’t need a prescription to buy them. In prison, however, everything requires a prescription. But for something with no risk of addiction or diversion—aspirin, for example—the prescription will be dispensed KOP.

KOP is also what allows prisoners to carry approved medical equipment, like asthma inhalers. If you have asthma, refilling your KOP inhaler prescription works similarly to how some syringe service programs operate on “one-to-one ” exchange. You have to bring in the old one in order to get a new one.

Another route already built into correctional medical services is what in Washington State is called a Health Status Report (HSR). These are issued to prisoners by medical providers, and essentially serve as a license to carry various medical devices and equipment outside the scope of regular medication. If you use hearing aids, you need a KOP prescription for the batteries but you get the devices themselves through an HSR. If you have smoking-related complications and need a CPAP machine, same thing. Providers can issue an HSR for anything if there’s sufficient medical cause.

There’s also a non-medical route: Sell naloxone at commissary.

Issuing naloxone to prisoners this way would be a natural fit for smaller OEND pilots, because it requires the medical provider to meet with the participants in person. Infection control staff would be the logical choice at any institution, due to the correlation between substance use and HIV/hepatitis C.

There’s also a non-medical route: Sell naloxone at commissary. This would be the equivalent of over-the-counter. You do need a prescription for aspirin, but you can also buy it at commissary if you can afford to.

Sales could be done on a one-to-one protocol. Some county jails have sold vapes that way, albeit at a higher markup than corrections departments could probably get away with for naloxone.

The kits would be considered too sensitive to be bagged up and delivered alongside standard commissary orders, but there’s already an existing one-to-one protocol for items like that—they get issued as property. TVs, for example. You’re only allowed to have one, and you can’t buy a new one from commissary if you don’t turn in the old one. 

Adding naloxone to a prison system’s property matrix, the list of items prisoners are allowed to have, would potentially involve a policy change. Which is no reason it can’t be done, it just means it administration would have to go out of their way to do it, while the other options could really just be folded into existing infrastructure. 

Security

Generic intramuscular naloxone, as opposed to nasal sprays like Narcan, is for the time being at least a non-starter at probably any US corrections department because it comes with a needle. And many have assumed that an OEND pilot can’t use the nasal sprays for the same reason—they also contain a hollow needle. It’s what punctures the sealed compartment holding the actual naloxone when the device is deployed.

Some prisoners are allowed to have embroidery needles, or paperwork containing staples. Glucometers, with the little lancet to check your blood sugar, are issued HSR. Those aren’t considered security risks because they aren’t hollow. The needle inside the nasal spray devices is hollow and, though it’s a larger gauge than just about anyone would prefer, could be used to inject drugs. However, the security measures to control this already exist.

Every time someone with asthma picks up their new KOP inhaler, it comes labeled with their ID information, the date the prescription was filled and the date it expires. In Washington State, officers are already required to inspect everyone’s cell every day and do more thorough inspections at least once a week. All they’d have to do is check that the device hadn’t been tampered with, i.e. the plastic casing hadn’t been cracked open to get at the needle inside.

Medical equipment that could been used as weapons—canes, for example—is issued all the time.

Another option is to issue prisoners the same plastic boxes that naloxone is already kept in at officer stations. The boxes aren’t locked, but have a tamper-proof security tag. If the box has been opened, there’s no hiding it. Officers could just check whether the box has been opened during those same routine inspections.

Medical equipment which has on occasion been used as weapons—canes, for example—are issued with an HSR all the time. It’s understood that the potential security risk is negligible, and greatly outweighed by the need.

Whenever medical writes an HSR, a copy goes to the staff in the prisoner’s living unit notifying them to inspect it during cell searches, as well as what signs of tampering to look for.

Naloxone is not dangerous. It can’t be used to get high, is not toxic if administered incorrectly, and would have no monetary value in prison. 

Prisons exist to control and surveil. They’re designed to enforce exactly these kinds of protocols. The resistance to giving prisoners access to naloxone doesn’t come from concerns about security.  It comes from cop culture and the moralizing of drug use, and of anything that suggests prisoners have anything that looks like autonomy.

This isn’t asking them to do anything they don’t already do. Just asking them to do their jobs.

Correction, March 25, 2026: A previous version of this article stated that no United States prison system has made naloxone accessible to people in custody. Earlier in 2024, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began offering naloxone kits to all incoming prisoners during the intake process.

Read Part 3 of this series here

Image (cropped) via Michigan Department of Corrections

The post There Are Multiple Routes to Prisoner Naloxone Access. These Are the Best. appeared first on Filter.

Good Samaritan laws vary substantially from state to state in terms of how much protection they offer, and to whom. But even the weakest ones provide, at minimum, immunity for the person who calls 911. In prisons, where department policies govern people’s lives the way laws do out on the street, it’s the opposite. Any prisoner who sees another prisoner overdosing is required to report it, and will be placed under investigation the moment they do.

Prisoners at the scene of an active overdose usually have three options: Try to flag down a cop; try to keep the other person alive without help; or do nothing.

Flagging down a cop is the equivalent of calling 911. If you do this, you’re a suspect in the incident. It’s going on your record. Bulletins about suspicious behaviors to monitor you for are being sent out to staff. Your cell is getting searched, your property is getting broken in the process, your mail is getting read, your phone calls are getting listened to. You’re probably getting drug-tested. If they find anything, you’re getting an infraction. Even if the investigation ultimately finds you not guilty, just being investigated in and of itself can cost you your job, your visitation privileges, “good behavior time,” etc. 

And from fellow prisoners, you get what’s called a “snitch jacket.” Assuming the person who overdosed survived, whatever punishment they’re now dealing with—you did that to them. Or at least that’s how the population will see it. If you’re affiliated with a gang, you’ll face specific punishments from them too, but you’ll be ostracized by everyone. No one will talk to you or do business with you, even if they think you did the right thing, because now they’ll be punished for associating with you.

If you want to avoid this but don’t want the person you’re with to die, you have to try to save them without naloxone. Usually people do this with rescue breathing and ice, if the ice machine’s not broken. However, prisoners are not allowed to render medical aid to one another—so if officers catch you doing any of this, then you’re still facing an investigation and all those same sanctions.

None of this changes based on whether or not the victim dies; if they do, sanctions for trying to save them might be slightly more lenient, but that’s all.

So current policy incentivizes the third option: Do nothing. Even if your cellie overdoses and dies in their bunk while you’re three feet away, you can probably weather the resulting investigation by just answering every question with, “I was asleep.”

With opioid overdoses on the rise, @LASDHQ wants to ensure that inmate safety is of utmost priority. I have implemented a Narcan Custody Pilot Project, in less than ten days the pilot project saved three inmates from an opioid overdose. #NARCAN https://t.co/Op1if2zY4f

— Alex Villanueva (@LACoSheriff_33) May 28, 2021

The way to avoid all this, and reverse more overdoses more often, is for prisons to implement Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution (OEND) programs that allow people in custody to use naloxone themselves. But for prisoners to be able to do this safely, they need the policy equivalent of a Good Samaritan law.

An effective Good Samaritan policy would explicitly grant immunity from disciplinary sanctions as well as immunity from any formal or informal retaliation. And—most importantly—it would prohibit staff from investigating any prisoners as suspects in the overdose, or using the overdose as a pretext to open other investigations into the people involved.

These protections would need to apply to anyone who retrieves or administers naloxone under an OEND program; anyone who assists them; anyone on the receiving end of the naloxone; anyone who reports the incident, if applicable; and the cellie of anyone above, since they’ll be considered involved by association. Often this would be a total of two people, but not necessarily.

OEND programs have already been piloted in some county jails in the United States. In 2023, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation made naloxone accessible to some of the incarcerated population, and as of February offers a kit to each incoming prisoner during the intake process. But it remains the only prison system to have taken this step.

There are at least half a dozen potential pathways for getting naloxone into the hands of prisoners, all of which are independent of one another and could in theory be pursued concurrently. The first two involve storing naloxone in common areas, like bathrooms.

General Population Unit Bathrooms

In most county jail OEND pilots, naloxone was made accessible to people in custody by putting it in the dormitories where anyone housed there could reach it. Minimum- and medium-security prisons across the country all tend to use a similar layout—either open dorms, or cells with doors that aren’t locked at night, leaving 24/7 access to common areas—so that county jail model could be easily replicated in prisons. However, it shouldn’t be.

For naloxone to be accessible to prisoners, it can’t be kept anywhere that’s surveilled. To be clear, there is no privacy in prison—every moment of every day, no matter what you’re doing, you’re doing it in front of cops. But there’s a huge difference between being surveilled by 24/7 security cameras, like in the dorms and day rooms, versus by an officer doing their randomized walk-through once each hour. Like in the bathrooms.

At Washington Corrections Center (Shelton) where Jonathan is incarcerated, the bathrooms are in the day rooms. From probably any prison day room in the country, you can be sitting at a table and see straight into the bathroom. But you can’t see someone actually sitting on a toilet or taking a shower, and while officers do walk through the bathrooms they don’t stare into them all day from a booth. Bathrooms are the only places that don’t have cameras. They’re where most ODs occur, and where naloxone needs to be stored in order to be accessible. The kits could be kept in a box that prisoners could open anonymously, without any alarm going off, and flip a flag to indicate it needs to be refilled.

Wet Cells

In late 2023, a county jail in central Washington began putting naloxone kits inside each cell. Previously the facility had kept the kits outside of each cell. But after a non-fatal OD that put someone in the hospital for five days, jail administrators agreed on giving direct access to people in custody. Each cell has at least two doses, and larger cells have four.

This model—naloxone inside each cell—is what’s needed wherever people are incarcerated with little or no access to common areas. This is the “wet cell” layout, where each cell has a toilet and sink rather than everyone sharing a bathroom down the hall. 

This layout is also widely used across the country; often in higher-security prisons. Or in higher-security parts of a prison, like the living units that are separate from the general population units at Shelton.

Shelton is the Washington State intake facility for everyone being processed into the men’s prison system from the county jails. Every state prison system has a equivalent facility.

The two-person cells in the Shelton Reception Units are wet cells, so no one has unsupervised access to day rooms or showers. People housed in the R-Units go to the chow hall, yard, gym, and that’s it. So the naloxone needs to be in each cell not only because that’s where the ODs happen, but because if it’s kept anywhere but their cells they won’t be able to reach it.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Shelton was at one point using the R-Units as isolation housing for prisoners who tested positive. One night when Jonathan was there, it was after midnight when he and the 50 or so other prisoners on the same tier started to hear yelling. Not the usual kind of prison yelling; frantic, sustained yelling. After a few minutes, they realized that it was coming from a different tier. From 200 feet across a courtyard, everyone on the other tier was yelling at their tier for help.

It took another 10 minutes for everyone on Jonathan’s tier to realize this, organize enough to get everyone to quiet down so they could hear the message, and several more minutes of yelling back and forth before they understood what was happening: Someone on the other tier had had a heart attack; everyone there had been yelling and banging the walls for 45 minutes trying to get an officer’s attention. But no one came, so they’d opened the windows to yell at Jonathan’s tier so that they could start banging and yelling to get an officer’s attention, and hopefully have someone sent over. Which is what ultimately happened, after another 15 minutes or so. Had it been an overdose, no one would have made any noise at all.

Officers having naloxone isn’t enough. Even if prisoners tried to report every overdose, even if officers knew where the naloxone was and were willing to use it, it wouldn’t be enough because—especially in the most heavily secured places—they’re always the last to know and last to arrive. The most effective first responders, the people best-positioned to use naloxone, are the people who are there all along. 

Correction, March 25, 2026: A previous version of this article stated that no United States prison system has made naloxone accessible to people in custody.

Read Part 2 of this series here

Photograph via San Diego County Sheriff’s Office

The post Overdose Prevention in Prisons Means Giving Prisoners Access to Naloxone appeared first on Filter.

On May 22, Filter reported that WDOC will stop delivering all greeting cards and postcards mailed to the approximately 14,700 people incarcerated in state prisons, effective June 15. Instead, it will deliver photocopies of the cards and then destroy the cards themselves, stating that this is a necessary measure to combat the rise in synthetic drugs entering prisons by mail.

On May 28, in response to Filter’s initial inquiries, WDOC confirmed that “colorimetric tests, such as NIK testing, are being used along with other testing methods to determine whether incoming mail contains synthetic cannabinoids. These tests are a quick and effective method for initial drug detection.”

Colorimetric test results aren’t intended to be used as evidence on their own. They’re supposed to be confirmed at a forensics lab; many manufacturers list it in the instructions as a requirement, and the initial results are notoriously prone to false positives. WDOC told Filter it had begun contracting with NMS Labs, but was only sending mail for confirmatory testing “in some cases.”

Some states have moved away from NIK tests, specifically, because they weren’t suitable for synthetic cannabinoids.

While it’s true that colorimetric tests are a quick method of initial drug detection, they’ve been widely established as an ineffective one—particularly for synthetic cannabinoids, commonly known as “Spice” or “K2.” In September 2023, amid a class-action lawsuit, WDOC announced it would no longer sanction prisoners based solely on unconfirmed results from colorimetric tests. In December Filter reported that the department had continued the practice.

NMS Labs obtains confirmatory results through Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry analysis, which is considered the gold-standard in forensic drug-checking. WDOC obtains its initial results through subjective determinations by staff by about whether the chemical reagent has changed to something that’s more of a yellow or an orange or a brown. Some state prison systems have moved away from NIK kits, specifically, because they weren’t suited to testing for synthetic cannabinoids.

“While it’s understood that this policy may affect many for the actions of a few, the safety and security of the facility and its inhabitants are of utmost importance,” WDOC stated to Filter, “especially with the prevalence of websites openly selling drug laced paper and greeting cards, and only a fraction of which is needed to cause serious intoxication.” The department did not directly respond to Filter‘s inquiry about its stance on group punishment and whether the ban was being used as such.

“[A] single 5×7 greeting card can be divided up into over 1000 individual doses and sold for up to $10,000,” WDOC continued, “which puts the entire population at risk.”

According to multiple people currently in WDOC custody, one standard “hit” is a quarter-inch square of paper sold for $5, meaning a 5″ x 7″ card would yield 560 hits, which could be sold for $2,800. In order for the department’s statement to bear out, hits would have be either shrunk down to one-eighth by one-eighth of an inch, or priced at $20; there’s no real market for either.

WDOC said the ban on greeting cards and postcards was decided in collaboration with the state attorney general’s office. The department did not provide specifics about the increases in the mailroom detections of “synthetic drugs” referenced in its initial announcement of the ban, nor the “increase of violence.”

It did, however, explain that its reference to an increase in drug-related medical emergencies included “overdoses and the administration of Narcan.” The overdose antidote works on synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, but it has no effect on the synthetic cannabinoids that WDOC said it’s detecting on incoming mail. Nor on the other synthetic drugs that would be relevant to the situation, namely methamphetamine and bath salts.

Aside from the fact that it only works on opioids, administration of Narcan is not in and of itself evidence that an overdose actually happened. Narcan is used unnecessarily all the time, most notably by law enforcement operating under misinformation about what opioid overdose looks like and how to respond to it.

For example, a sign posted in the visit room at Washington Corrections Center (Shelton), where Jonathan is currently incarcerated, states that a common symptom used to identify opioid overdose is seizures. This is an extremely rare reaction to opioids—synthetic or otherwise—that is much more indicative of synthetic cannabinoids, or stimulants.

One man told Filter that he and his daughter communicate entirely through greeting cards.

At Shelton, the culture around corrections officers’ use of Narcan has changed drastically over the past year. Whereas they once openly refused to to administer it, since being cleared to carry it on them at all times in October 2023 it’s become a running joke on the compound that they’ll Narcan you for something like the common cold—because, “You never know!”

Greeting cards and postcards are currently the primary source of color on display inside Washington State prisons, and a particularly meaningful form of connection between loved ones separated by state custody.

One man currently incarcerated at Shelton told Filter that he and his daughter communicate entirely through greeting cards. His conviction did not involve her or any family members, but prohibits him from having unsupervised contact with children, even his own. His daughter currently attends therapy, and her therapist keeps a stack of greeting cards for her. Each week she picks out a card, and the therapist mails it to her dad; it’s their only means of contact.

Now, each week he’ll get a black-and-white photocopy on 8.5” x 11” printer paper, and WDOC will destroy the one his daughter wrote on.

Asked about the potential negative impacts on mental health and community ties, WDOC told Filter it is “looking into the costs and possibility of providing color copies.”

Top photograph (cropped) via Arkansas State Crime Laboratory. Inset graphic via New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

The post Faulty Drug Tests From 2023 Lawsuit Behind WA Prison Greeting Card Ban appeared first on Filter.

At Washington Corrections Center (Shelton), where Jonathan is currently incarcerated, the news is spreading slowly. Policy changes are supposed to be shared with prisoners at least 30 days in advance of implementation, and usually they’re physically printed out and posted on the wall. Electronic versions are also uploaded to the communal kiosks—each general population living unit has one in the foyer, where people mostly use it to check their account balances.

Usually the updates are in the Notification section, which pops up automatically when you log in. This update was added to the kiosks on May 20, but buried in the Announcements section, which does not appear automatically and which no one ever really checks. A printout was not put up on the wall until the graveyard shift between May 21 and 22, which is also unusual. It reads as follows:

The message is being sent on behalf of Melissa Andrewjeski, Assistant Secretary of the Women’s Prisons Division, and Don Holbrook, Assistant Secretary of the Men’s Prisons Division. Effective June 15, 2024, greeting cards and postcards sent to incarcerated individuals inside Washington State Department of Corrections facilities will be photocopied when received by the mailroom, and the copies only will be issued to the incarcerated individuals. The original content and the envelope will be disposed of following mailroom procedures. The reason for this change is because we are discovering a number of unsafe greeting cards and postcards that contain synthetic drugs on the specific type of paper used for greeting cards and postcards. Introducing drugs into the prison system is illegal and extremely dangerous. This method of introducing drugs is of particular concern in prisons nationwide because they are less predictable and even more dangerous. The increase in drug traffickers using this and other methods to introduce dangerous drugs has resulted in an increase of violence and drug-related medical emergencies. By photocopying greeting cards and postcards as permitted by DOC policy 450.100 it is our intent to increase safety and reduce the risk of introducing dangerous contraband.

In response to Filter‘s May 22 inquiries into various aspects of the announcement and their implications, WDOC Media Relations Manager Tobby Hatley said that subject matter experts were not available that day. The questions included whether the synthetic drugs are being discovered through the same presumptive drug-testing practices described in a class-action lawsuit filed against the department in September 2023. [Update: On May 28, WDOC confirmed to Filter that those same practices were behind the impending ban.]

Presumptive drug-testing relies on colorimetric reagent kits that are notorious for false positives, particularly with synthetic cannabinoids, and not intended to be used as evidence without followup confirmatory testing at a lab. As a result of the lawsuit, WDOC updated its policy so that it could no longer sanction prisoners based on those results alone. In December, Filter reported that the department was still doing so.

Synthetic cannabinoids are known as “Spice” in WDOC facilities, where they’re widely used. Though it’s safe to assume these are what the department is referring to, “synthetic drugs” and other non-specific language in the announcement allows more leeway for cards to be disposed of without necessarily confirming what was on them.

Though prisoners sanctioned based on presumptive testing results, even after the practice was supposed to end, have often faced harsh punishments, it hasn’t really been something they’ve experienced en masse. If there was solid evidence that cards containing synthetic drugs were pouring into WDOC facilities on a scale that justified categorically banning them across the state, a lot more people inside would be getting infracted and a lot more people outside would be getting arrested.

WDOC joins prison and jail systems across the country that have in recent years implemented the same change, or a similar version, and justified it with the same reason. Photocopied mail has so far failed to reduce the supply of contraband drugs, but has prompted such an outpouring of lawsuits that some states have reverted to their original mailroom policies.

Cards have a special importance in prisons that’s distinct from letters written on regular paper.

In addition to anything with extra-festive elements like stickers, current WDOC policy already rejects cards for being too small, too big, written on using “excessive” ink or not written on at all. Color envelopes are confiscated, their contents delivered inside a black-and-white photocopy of the envelope that’s been folded in half. But color is allowed on the cards themselves. Along with the individual cards, WDOC is banning the only real source of color inside facilities that are otherwise beige or gray.

Greeting cards and postcards both have a special importance in prisons that’s distinct from letters written on regular paper. In WDOC facilities, photographs were commonly displayed in cells, until a few years back when the first tablets arrived. Once people started sending digital images, a lot of them stopped mailing photographs. Cards are the memories that get displayed now.

The holiday season is a particularly difficult time in prisons, for reasons that would be compounded by receiving a grainy black-and-white photocopy of what used to be a card.

Greeting cards and postcards don’t all use one “specific type of paper”—but using this language in the announcement allows mailroom staff to apply it however is convenient. It’s likely that the ban will affect more than just greeting cards and postcards, because cardstock-like paper is used to announce most of life’s big rites of passage: births, coming-of-age celebrations, graduations, weddings, funerals.

Of all the methods by which we’re allowed to communicate, greeting cards are most fun, and funny.

The department heavily emphasizes “maintaining and strengthening family ties” as a vital part of preparation for re-entry, and it’s not clear how that’s being reconciled with the impending ban.

The two of us have a personal stake in the matter, because in late 2023 we got married. Of all the methods by which we’re allowed to communicate, greeting cards are the most fun, and funny. It’s evolved to the point where a pretty steady stream of holiday cards arrives at Shelton off-season with Boggle games drawn on the inside, which are then either taped up on the wall or mailed back with the next part of the conversation. Which will continue past June 15, but with photographs of the cards—since color photographs are still permitted if they’re on photo paper—rather than ever mailing the real thing.

There are currently over 14,700 people incarcerated in WDOC facilities. About half of them are parents, who are already unable to receive any crayon or gel pen drawings from their children. In grouping the entire state prison population’s families and friends outside with “drug traffickers,” the department is effectively sanctioning tens of thousands of people, including children, for actions taken by the significantly smaller number of adults linked to contraband mail—a number which almost certainly will include people falsely accused, if the results aren’t all sent out for confirmatory testing.

Update, May 22: This article has been edited to include Washington State Department of Corrections’ response to Filter‘s short-notice request for comment.

Correction, May 29: This article has been updated to accurately reflect the number of incarcerated people who will be affected by the ban. The previous figure included state-wide emergency beds which are not necessarily occupied.

Photograph via Wake County Sheriff’s Office

The post WA Prisons to Ban Greeting Cards and Postcards, Presuming Synthetic Drugs appeared first on Filter.

Stimulant overdose doesn’t cause physical harm nearly as often as people think, but it does cause serious harm all the time when law enforcement gets involved. This is why stimulant harm reduction fits synthetic cannabinoids as well as it fits coke or meth.

Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRA) are known by a wide variety of nicknames across the country, but people are often familiar with them as either “K2” or “Spice.” Or “strips,” as they’re often known in prison drug supplies, though the term can describe papers coated with anything from Suboxone to meth to insecticide, or mystery substances that are sold as mysteries. SCRA don’t really have anything to do with the cannabis that comes from the plant; they just share the name because they both interact with your cannabinoid receptors.

In some cases people use SCRA because they have legal access. Even though many SCRA have been progressively banned at federal or state levels, beginning with the Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 2012, there are too many ever-evolving chemical compounds to ban them all. This means that SCRA can’t be easily identified with urine drug screens compared to most other banned substances, which is why they’re very often used by people who don’t have legal access to any drugs. People who are under some form of state supervision, such as methadone maintenance programs, drug-sentencing alternative programs, parole/probation and especially incarceration.

Dosing

SCRA have been a mainstay in prison and jail drug supplies for several years. The Iron Law of Prohibition—“as law enforcement becomes more intense, the potency of prohibited substances increases”—often doesn’t apply to synthetic drugs entering the supply, because there are so many new kinds that the potency is all over the place. But the concept definitely applies to strips, and to any drugs being used inside prisons.

“Start low, go slow” is common harm reduction advice because one of the main risks of using any unregulated drug is that people almost never know how much they’re using at a time. But it’s an especially big problem with SCRA strips. For a basic example, a strip that got one coat of SCRA might make someone hallucinate like a psychedelic high, while a strip that got two coats of the exact same thing might make them fall out like an opioid high.

The effects can vary so much from one strip to the next, so it’s natural to assume that different strips contain different kinds of SCRA—especially if they came from different places. And sometimes the difference does have something to do with the chemical compounds themselves. But usually the reason some SCRA strips seem stronger or weaker than others, or act like “uppers” while others act like “downers,” has more to do with how much is on them, rather than what is on them. 

Seizures and Passing Out

SCRA can sometimes cause seizures. The important thing to know is that these almost always resolve on their own within a couple of minutes. It helps to stabilize the person’s head, and get any sharp objects out of the way.

Seizures from meth or cocaine don’t cause any physical damage to the person experiencing them, and this generally appears to be the case with SCRA. But there is a lot more room for the unknown, since the effects of SCRA aren’t as well-established as they are with the drugs we typically think of as stimulants.

Respiratory depression from using SCRA isn’t nearly as likely as it with opioids, but it is possible. A lot of substances that work as uppers, including stimulants, turn into downers when taken at higher doses. If someone falls out after using what they believed to be SCRA, the important thing is to monitor their breathing. If they’re breathing on their own, at least eight-ish breaths per minute, they’ll be alright to just sleep it off. Put them in the recovery position; SCRA toxicity does make people puke sometimes.

“Bugging Out”

The way “overdose” usually refers to opioids, and the slightly more niche “overamp” refers to stimulants, in prisons the term for SCRA toxicity is often “bug-outs,” or “epees” (short for “episode”). These often involve hallucinations and a break with reality, but only for relatively short periods—maybe 10 minutes or so.

In both prison culture and outside culture, any kind of overdose is assumed to be a sign of addiction. But opioid overdose still prompts a certain amount of sympathy, even from those who view drug use as a moral failing. Stimulant overdose, including from SCRA, is where things diverge.

Because the principal harms of these overdoses come from criminalization, harm reduction on the outside involves the fairly straightforward step of not calling the cops. In prisons, where people are already surrounded by cops all the time, there’s the potential for harm no matter what you do.

If someone uses SCRA and starts loudly hallucinating, they’re likely to get beat up later by other prisoners in their living unit. Attracting the attention of corrections officers often gets others in the vicinity punished too, so it isn’t tolerated regardless of the outcome of an individual incident. 

If someone’s cellie uses SCRA and starts puking or having a seizure, and they call an officer for help, they’re likely to get beat up for the exact same reason. It’s not uncommon for various groups in prisons, including gangs, to have explicit rules against calling officers for help when the situation involves drugs. Meanwhile, corrections departments often have rules that if someone is found to be using drugs, their cellie is guilty by association, unless the cellie was the one to report it.

The best way to navigate this aspect depends entirely on the specifics of the facility and individual people involved. But it’s often just a no-win situation.

Photograph via Pennsylvania Department of Corrections

The post Stimulant Harm Reduction Should Include Synthetic Cannabinoids appeared first on Filter.

Some are already aware that these claims aren’t true, or aren’t interested one way or the other. But some are receptive to the information once they have it, and see that it’s not incompatible with their training objectives regarding officer safety or public safety. Often the myths passed down from cop to cop make overdose response more difficult and less safe, both for the overdose victims they’re responding to and for the cops themselves.  

It’d be preferable to everyone if law enforcement officers weren’t the ones getting dispatched to overdoses, but for the time being that’s the world we live in. The following information is applicable regardless of personal ideology or experience level using Narcan. It just makes using it safer and easier.

You Don’t Need to Wake Them Up to Reverse the OD

It’s a misconception that an overdose isn’t over until the person is fully conscious. On the streets, cops are often dispatched after 911 operators established that the victim was “unresponsive.” In prisons and jails, corrections officers will call over the intercom that they have an “unresponsive inmate,” then step away and wait for backup without checking if the person has a pulse or is breathing. Narcan is administered until the person is “responsive,” which is understood to mean “until the person is awake.” It’s supposed to mean “until the person is breathing on their own.”

The safest way to administer Narcan is to give them one dose, then wait at least two minutes before considering whether to give them a second. If they start to breathe on their own and are taking at least eight breaths per minute—whether or not they’ve opened their eyes yet—then they don’t need any more Narcan. 

Eight breaths per minute is a somewhat subjective benchmark for “normal breathing.” You might read elsewhere that the number of breaths per minute is as low as five, or at least 12. There isn’t an exact consensus, but most experts would consider eight to 10 breaths per minute to be safe.

Likewise, some overdose-reversal resources might say to give someone a second dose of Narcan if normal breathing hasn’t resume after three minutes, rather than two minutes. There isn’t a definitively correct answer, but you should always wait at least two minutes and never more than five.  

Extra Narcan Doesn’t Make It Work Better

When you’re mailing a letter, you need one stamp, maybe two. You can put a bunch of extra stamps on the envelope “just to be safe,” but that doesn’t mean they’re necessary, and they won’t make the letter get there any faster.

Narcan works by going to the same receptors in the brain that opioids go to, and bumping off whatever opioids happened to be there first. Once it hits about half the relevant receptors, the overdose is reversed. This generally takes between two and five minutes.

If you give someone additional doses of Narcan right after you gave them the first one, it won’t make the first dose reach those receptors any faster. When it looks like it doesn’t work until you hit them with three or four or five doses, but it’s only been a couple of minutes, then what you’re seeing is the effect of the first dose getting where it needs to go. 

If you ask colleagues how they know that multiple doses of Narcan were needed, they’re probably going to tell you that multiple doses of Narcan were used. It’s a case of “correlation not causation,” which is common in narratives about illicit drugs. Another example is the purported rise in THC overdose among children, based on the volume of calls to Poison Control Centers. Which doesn’t indicate how many children actually overdosed on THC, but the number of times someone said they did.

It’s true that “every second counts” when someone’s not getting oxygen to their brain, but faster-acting alternatives like Opvee are more harmful than Narcan without being any more effective. While waiting for Narcan or any overdose-reversal agent to kick in and allow the person to breathe on their own again, the important thing is that someone else breathe for them.

You Can Save Them Without Narcan

If you can’t find any Narcan, or are waiting on someone to bring it, rescue breathing can take its place until backup arrives or the overdose dissipates naturally. The latter might take hours, but as long as the person keeps getting oxygen delivered to their brain, they don’t need Narcan to survive. They should also receive rescue breathing after the first dose while waiting to see if a second is necessary.

Most overdose-reversal resources underemphasize rescue breathing and overemphasize chest compressions. However, this is generally to “increase participation from lay personnel” who might be less willing to try the former than the latter. First responders trained in chest compressions and rescue breathing are advised to do both, but there’s actually very little evidence that chest compressions are beneficial in the context of opioid overdose. Rescue breathing, on the other hand, is the tried-and-true method of keeping someone alive until Narcan can be administered, and while you wait for it to work.

Narcan Works on Fentanyl

Higher-potency versions of Narcan aren’t necessary to counteract higher-potency opioids, nor are longer-acting versions necessary because Narcan “wears off too quickly.” Regular Narcan works the same way on all opioids, including fentanyl and fentanyl analogs, regardless of their potency.

It is true that people who were just given Narcan often overdose again within the next few hours, but this phenomenon is due to people adding more opioids to their system, rather than residual opioids in their system reactivating.

Compared to lower-potency opioids like heroin, fentanyl overdoses are more dangerous because they happen more quickly. Someone can fall into respiratory depression and die in the time it takes for someone else to arrive with Narcan, which is why it’s critical to carry it on your person and why it needs to be especially accessible to the people most likely to be in close proximity to an overdose.

Too Much Narcan Is Harmful

The most effective version of naloxone, the main ingredient in Narcan, is the 0.4 mg intramuscular vial you use like an EpiPen. That dose is the amount most adults need to for the naloxone to reach half the relevant receptors in their brain, and thus reverse the overdose.

When arriving at the scene of an overdose, it can seem intuitive to hit the person with Narcan a couple of times back-to-back, especially if you don’t know how long they’ve already been unresponsive. The problem is that in most cases, a standard 4 mg Narcan nasal spray already contains a bigger dose than they needed, and multiple doses or higher-potency formulations almost guarantee it. For someone with an opioid tolerance, waking up by way of an unnecessarily large dose of Narcan is extremely painful, and is often the catalyst for overdosing again shortly after an attempt to alleviate that pain.

If you’ve ever revived someone with Narcan who then took a swing at you, chances are it could have been avoided by only giving them the amount that they needed.

Image via San Diego County Sheriff’s Department

The post If You’re a Cop, There Are Better Ways for You to Use Narcan appeared first on Filter.

The next day, The New York Times reported that according to doctors, the mother had irreversible brain damage and the children were all going to die. It ran the story under the headline: “MEXICAN FAMILY GO INSANE.”

After the federal government created the created Bureau of Narcotics, an early predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Commissioner Henry Anslinger found an effective way to engineer the criminalization of marijuana. He would scour the country for the most salacious reports of the most bizarre or violent behaviors by Black and Brown people, and then he would funnel them to journalists and suggest they print abhorrently racist stories about marijuana making people psychotic criminals. And they did.

Harm reduction is moving into the public consciousness, but drug-war propaganda is not moving out. Law enforcement and media found a mutually beneficial model using propaganda that’s no more subtle today than it was 100 years ago, it just moves from drug to drug. Over the decades, the public has more or less accepted that weed doesn’t make entire families go mad, but that NYT story would still fly if you swapped in different drugs.

If you were a PCP user in the late 1970s, you attacked bystanders at random. You had unusual strength. You were unstoppable, you could jump, you could fly.

“It’s a real terror of a drug,” National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Robert DuPont said in 1977. “Everything people used to say about marijuana is true about angel dust.”

In 1977, the year the DEA created a Special Action Office to investigate phencyclidine (PCP), the media coverage was beside itself. If you used PCP in the late 1970s, the NYT or the Washington Post or your local paper of record reported that you were about to “go berserk and commit violent crimes.” You attacked bystanders at random. You had unusual strength. You were unstoppable, you could jump, you could fly.

The post Media Never Changed Its 1970s PCP Propaganda, Just Repurposed It appeared first on Filter.

On August 31, SAMHSA released a resource guide titled “Best Practices for Successful Reentry From Criminal Justice Settings for People Living With Mental Health Conditions and/or Substance Use Disorders.” The document is meant to identify the best-evidenced interventions for reducing recidivism, then describe how law enforcement, medical providers and community-based organizations can implement them.

The agency followed up with a September 7 webinar to discuss the three re-entry strategies in the guide: medications for opioid and alcohol use disorders (MOUD/MAUD); case management; and peer and patient navigation.

All were selected because studies support them as evidence-based, and discussed in the context of both substance use disorder (SUD) and mental illness, as well as the context of re-entry from both prisons and jails. But the guidance limited its effectiveness by characterizing abstinence as a part of successful re-entry and not centering people with lived experience. And, as with its definition of recovery, by deliberately avoiding anything too specific.

Re-Entry Doesn’t Require Abstinence

Medications shown to reduce fatal overdose, like methadone and buprenorphine, are a critical component of re-entry because it’s well-established that the period following release—generally defined as a few weeks or months—is when overdose risk is at its highest. The missed opportunity here was in talking about MOUD and MAUD as abstinence-based interventions, and presenting abstinence as a prerequisite for not going back to jail or prison.

Our health care and criminal-legal systems already conflate recidivism with “relapse,” so it makes sense for SAMHSA to not distinguish between re-entry and recovery. There’s no discussion about re-entry services for people who aren’t interested in abstinence; it’s just a foregone conclusion that everyone diagnosed with SUD needs abstinence-based recovery services. Harm reduction services are sprinkled in, but as afterthoughts or as line-items in a list.

Some harm reduction references are simply inaccurate. The authors encourage re-entry programs to facilitate access to naloxone and tell them it’s been available over-the-counter since March. One reason this is unhelpful is that naloxone only started becoming available in September. But mostly it’s unhelpful because not everyone recently released has access to naloxone, and they’re going to get get it by way of someone telling them they can pay $50 to order it online.

Equating successful re-entry with abstinence is harmful, but it’s how substance use is discussed all the time. Watching SAMHSA try to stretch the premise to cover abstinence from mental illness, however, is awkward.

The many people with co-occurring disorders are often excluded from studies, by researchers who don’t want to complicate their sample with more than one issue. We do need more resources that approach substance use disorder and mental illness together. But while the guide purports to cover both, mental illness is barely discussed at all.

Re-Entry Plans That Miss the Mark

A robust interdisciplinary team of social service navigators to help someone during re-entry is a fantastic approach, when it’s not missing the most important part. The guide contains obligatory acknowledgments that the person actually being released should be involved in their release plan, describing the role of corrections staff or medical providers or community groups before tacking on something like: “The client should also provide input on their case plan to establish their commitment to meeting its goals.”

Most corrections staff who have these discussions with people preparing for release aren’t seeking input; they’re seeking the biographical information needed to fill out the required fields on the paperwork. Even when a re-entry plan is spearheaded by outside providers, the experience of the person re-entering almost always amounts to being told what their goals are and how they’re expected to meet them.

If people were given authority over their own case plans and felt safe enough to express their actual needs, a case management team could help them create a re-entry plan that was more on-target.

A lot of people preparing for release would say that they don’t need help applying for public housing; they need corrections staff to approve the housing where their partner lives, which was deemed unsuitable because the officer sent to inspect it smelled marijuana.

They don’t need a ride to their treatment provider; they need help waiving the fines for their suspended driver’s license.

They don’t need the job downtown where they’ve been cleared to work; they need to be allowed to get a job near where they live. That one happens all the time, even when someone trying to maintain an abstinence-based recovery is asking to not have to work in the area where they used to buy drugs.

Academic Experience Isn’t Lived Experience

Patient navigation refers to a health care-specific version of case management, and those are the two approaches that make sense to group together. Peer navigation should have been the third category on its own.

Under SAMHSA’s definition, patient navigation is conducted by “trained health care workers” while peers have lived experience. Like MOUD/MAUD and case management, patient navigation was selected for a guide about evidence-based re-entry because a sufficient number of studies support it in that context.

Peer navigation in a re-entry context does not meet SAMHSA’s criteria for a best-evidenced practice, but the agency went out of its way to include it anyway. This was the right decision, but a missed opportunity—not just to discuss peer navigation on its own terms, but to represent it properly.

SAMHSA defines peers as people with lived experience “who have been successful in the recovery process who help others … stay engaged in the recovery process and reduce the likelihood of relapse.” Obviously this describes some peers, and will benefit some people navigating SUD and re-entry, but it will discourage people who don’t like abstinence-based environments from accessing re-entry services at all.

A peer-led guide might have avoided framings like “prisons and jails” in the first place.

One critical re-entry component that the guide got right, which is often overlooked or misrepresented in these discussions, is that re-entry planning should begin the first day of incarceration via “in-reach” by community-based organizations. But this was only discussed briefly, and the only evidence included was about re-entry from jails. In-reach to prisons wasn’t distinguished, as if it’s a minor detail that people being released after a few days need might need different services than people re-entering after decades.

The decision to not approach the two as separate scenarios, and instead stick to describing re-entry from “prisons and jails,” is a product of using academic studies to understand re-entry rather than lived experience.

More input from people with lived experience probably could have helped catch a lot of the little mischaracterizations that come from paraphrasing supporting citations without grasping what they actually mean, but a peer-led guide might have avoided framings like “prisons and jails” in the first place.

SAMHSA did not respond to Filter‘s request for comment about the role of people with lived experience in the guide’s creation.

The idea that every piece of guidance has to apply to every type of person precludes almost anything concrete enough to actually be helpful to anyone. SAMHSA refers to “treatment engagement” and “medication adherence” in contexts kept so deliberately broad that readers don’t know whether it’s talking about psychiatric medication or MOUD. Even the distinction between drug use and overdose is blurred at times, a casualty of the framework of approaching re-entry and recovery as the same thing.

Nobody navigates their way through the US health care and housing and criminal-legal systems with catch-all advice. Thinking that they do is the same perspective behind SAMHSA’s composite definition of recovery—two issues are related, so the experience of accessing their services must be similar. In the end, it’s the deliberate refusal to specify which issues it’s talking about at which points that complicates the discussion.

Top and inset graphics via Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

The post Re-Entry Isn’t the Same as Recovery, No Matter What SAMHSA Thinks appeared first on Filter.

In our experience, those who define harm reduction this way don’t work with people on the inside and don’t intend to. Sometimes they assume that because prisoners aren’t allowed to use drugs or have sex, that means they’re not. But usually it’s because they think of harm reduction and incarceration as separate issues, rather than of harm reduction as meeting people where they’re at, and prisons as where those people are.

Syringe service program (SSP) peers and participants, people at high risk of overdose, people trying to access medication for opioid use disorder, people with HIV and viral hepatitis and system-impacted people kept in poverty—these are not separate populations from the people who go to prison. They’re the same people. It’s just a matter of whether they’re inside or outside at a given point in time.

Many people currently in prison would be excellent SSP peer workers, if they were allowed to work. The ones doing a lot of time are the ones navigating short-timers through the internal systems of their DOC, because they’re sick of seeing the same people sent back in over and over. They operate with no resources and entirely inside the confines of the law, because that’s where they have to live.

None of the sixteen prisoners reached by Filter knew they could request an outside re-entry navigator.

Jonathan, for instance, is currently incarcerated at Washington Corrections Center (WCC) where he’s a teacher assistant for re-entry workshops, which become available to prisoners in the final six months of their sentence. But six months is not enough time to plan a re-entry. It’s just not. People are trying to figure out where they’ll live, but they can’t call or email government offices. No one secures housing via snail mail.

Jonathan helps them locate resources, but he doesn’t have access to the internet. He doesn’t have any kind of internal directory of local re-entry resources, because Washington State Department of Corrections (WDOC) doesn’t have one and has declined multiple opportunities to acquire ones created by other entities. WDOC has also repeatedly declined to put re-entry information on Securus, where prisoners would actually be able to read it themselves.

Jonathan has previously facilitated workshops covering safer injection, safer sex and safer tattooing. He was able to do so because a 501(c)3 nonprofit contracted with WDOC to do harm reduction work. Critical partnerships like that almost never happen, and they should.

SSP need to work with DOC in order to work with the people already supporting re-entry from the inside. Long-timers like Jonathan could build re-entry curriculums by pooling the needs of the people who’d be using them with the outside knowledge of SSP peers, and then those peers could simply get volunteer badges and bring them inside.

At Washington prisons, volunteers can be on medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD). They can have felony records. They need to have been out of prison for at least a year, but there are volunteers at WCC who’ve only been out for two.

In addition to incarceration, police encounters increase fatal overdose and HIV transmission. But once people are incarcerated and surrounded by cops all the time, SSP stop outreaching them. Not just because of access barriers, but because of a belief that corrections departments provide services for the people they warehouse.

Corrections departments do not provide services. They do not connect prisoners to anyone who does. They provide food, water and a bed—not necessarily all at the same time or with any consistency.

Without outside partnerships, Jonathan’s unable to make direct contact with anyone doing community re-entry work—even the re-entry navigators employed by WDOC itself.

“I’ve done no re-entry process … I’m [out] the gate and I’ve got nothing.”

Eligible WDOC prisoners can request a navigator be assigned to them by filling out an Essential Needs Survey and an Individual Reentry Plan.

However, six people in WCC with release dates less than 30 days away from publication of this article told Filter they weren’t aware that the process nor the navigators themselves existed. An additional eight people slated for release within the next three months said the same. The only two prisoners Filter spoke with who did know WDOC had re-entry navigators had previously been assigned to one, and still did not know how that had happened.

Michael Hauge walked out of WCC on June 27. He finished his 42-month sentence, some of it inside prison and some of it outside under supervision. When Hauge became eligible for electronic home monitoring through Graduated Reentry (GRE), a WDOC counselor gave him a bunch of forms, which he filled out without knowing what they were for.

In December 2021, WDOC revoked his GRE and returned him to prison. He never heard from his navigator after that. In order to get one again he’d have had to fill out the forms again, but he didn’t know this since he hadn’t known he’d filled them out in the first place.

“I’ve done no re-entry process … since my GRE was revoked,” Hauge told Filter. “I’m [out] the gate and I’ve got nothing.”

WDOC had asked him for an address, and eventually accepted one for a halfway house. That was his re-entry preparation.

If navigators work for the prison system, they’re going to navigate people right back into it.

In response to Filter‘s inquiries on the scope of WDOC’s outside navigators, the department stated that the “navigator unit … takes referrals from staff and various stakeholders which includes … [i]ndividuals with high medical/mental health needs at risk of decompensation or death related to health needs post release.”

This would mean prisoners whose overdose risk is about to go up several orders of magnitude can refer themselves to be assigned a navigator. But they’re never told this. There is a comprehensive plan for communication between navigators and prisoners they’re assigned to, but none of it applies before then.

“I got out on GRE and got it revoked,” said Aaron Pollak, the only other person reached by Filter who knew about the WDOC navigators. “I’m four months from my release date, and I have no re-entry stuff. They asked me for an address. That’s it.” Like Hauge, he’d filled out the forms without realizing.

Outside re-entry navigators are a very good idea. Every prison should have them. But they need to not be corrections staff. They should be from the community outside, like SSP peers, and they should not limit outreach to the people six months away from release. They should outreach everyone with a release date.

SSP peer working as re-entry liaisons could connect people with the resources they actually need. They’re often familiar with their state’s probationary system. They’re familiar with the government assistance programs and how to advocate for access to MOUD. They know where it’s safe to pitch a tent. They know the drug supply. And, critically, they know how to navigate people out of the cycle of criminalization. Navigators who work for the prison system are just going to navigate people right back into it.

Even harm reduction workers are already too late if they only meet people six months from the gate.

We know this requires funding. High-barrier government grants are rarely earmarked for harm reduction, even if the language claims it. However, this kind of work could tap into separate government funds earmarked for re-entry.

Until July 5, the Washington State Department of Commerce is accepting proposals for community-based groups to create or expand re-entry services, including housing and employment. Though it says it’s meant for people who are “currently and formerly” incarcerated, it’s obviously not intended to give anyone currently in prison a say in the applications sent on their behalf.

For one thing, the information is all online. For another, prisoners aren’t eligible to apply; but harm reduction nonprofits are.

Even SSP are already too late if they don’t start working with someone until they’re six months from the gate, let alone until the moment they walk out. That’s not when they rejoin the harm reduction community. They never left.

Photograph of Stafford Creek Corrections Center via Washington State Department of Corrections

The post Harm Reduction Meets People Where They’re at, Unless They’re at a Prison appeared first on Filter.