FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 5, 2015

CONTACT: Peter Van Delft
(617) 704-6682

Citing the need for more addiction recovery beds and diversionary programs, Sheriff Steven W. Tompkins offered support for Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and the Dimock Center in their focus on addressing the issue of substance abuse and recovery at tomorrow’s “Breakfast of Champions” program at the Dimock Center.

“More than eighty–five percent of our population is in our care and custody due to drug and/or alcohol related offenses,” said Sheriff Tompkins. “Rather than locking people up who would be better served by addiction recovery and diversionary programming, we should be looking expansively at alternatives to incarceration. I commend Mayor Walsh and the Dimock Center for their powerful commitment to the issue of addiction and recovery and all of the leaders assembled for discussing this important issue.”

Included among the many educational, vocational and behavioral programs that the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department offers, its focus on addiction and substance abuse includes addiction recovery units, which help chemically dependent inmates and detainees in their efforts to change their behaviors, beliefs and attitudes in order to successfully integrate back into society. In addition, the Department also offers 90–day substance abuse recovery programs at both the House of Correction and Nashua Street Jail, an Opioid Peer Prevention program, and, in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts at Boston, the Department offers ACEP (Boston Addiction Counselor Education Program), as well as other programming.