Texas Jail Expands Dual Diagnosis Treatment for Inmates

Roughly 60% of the people sitting in the Jasper County Jail in East Texas were booked on drug-related charges. Jail officials have decided that all those folks make up a treatment waiting list. A new partnership with the Recovery Council of Southeast Texas in Beaumont brings free dual diagnosis treatment to inmates who have neither insurance nor an outside provider with services that continue after release.

“About 60% of our jail population are individuals that were brought in on drug-related charges,” noted Taylor Justice, a public information officer for the Jasper County Jail. 

Thomas Aardahl of the Recovery Council of Southeast Texas relayed how state funding covers treatment while inmates are in custody and after they get out. They know that an inmate whose care stops at the jail door is an inmate likely to return.

Mental Health Connects with Addiction

The jail has run a parallel mental health program for three years through the Spindletop Center. Inmates can receive counseling and mental health treatment, including medications when needed, and can meet with a psychiatrist through telehealth appointments.

Mitch Hanley, the Jasper County mental health deputy, recalled the three intersecting problems. Substance abuse, mental health issues and crime feed into one another. Drugs can change behavior in ways that ripple outward.

Aardahl described the stakes that hurt loved ones and families. It is a network that we’re fighting against.”

Treatment Approaches Mentioned

Individualized services are built for a county jail population. They include the following:

• Intensive outpatient treatment
• Treatment planning
• Progress monitoring
• Individual therapy
• Group therapy

Free care addresses a gap that keeps many people out of behavioral treatment centers in the first place. Inmates who lack health insurance typically have no path to care. Releasing someone with an untreated substance use disorder back into Jasper County often means the next booking is a matter of time.

Understanding Dual Diagnosis

Let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Co-occurring disorders describe the common situation in which substance use and mental health conditions exist in the same person at the same time. Each one makes the other harder to treat. Someone whose underlying depression goes untreated during addiction care is at high risk of relapse and vice versa.

Integrated dual diagnosis treatment addresses both conditions together under one plan instead of routing the person between separate providers who don’t coordinate. Jasper County does just that. The Recovery Council handles substance use treatment while Spindletop covers mental health care. Both follow the inmate into the community.

Treatment in The Longhorn State & Beyond

Jail-based programs can help thousands, but most folks with co-occurring disorders never see the inside of a county jail. Their starting point is finding a provider that treats all conditions at once.

Our browsable directory lists mental health treatment facilities and behavioral treatment centers in all 50 states, including programs that specialize in co-occurring disorders.

Ready to talk through options? Call 800-908-4823 (Sponsored) and a specialist can help you find the right level of care.

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Eric Owens

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Eric Owens has been a writer and editor for various businesses as well as his own successful websites. He has extensive experience creating content in the health and wellness space and the sustainability space. He holds a bachelor degree in Philosophy which helped him with presenting complex information in a simple way that all audiences can understand.

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Peter Lee, PhD

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Peter W.Y. Lee is a writer and historian of American history during the Cold War. His primary focus is the relationship between youth and popular culture and its impact on U.S. society during the twentieth century. He has published widely on how the public has used popular culture as a mechanism to address political and social shifts throughout time