Scenario
Twenty-eight-year-old Charles (Chuck) Sanford is in jail awaiting transfer to a federal facility for a 10 year sentence. He has been in the jail system since his arrest 2 years and 4 months ago while his felony charges worked through the legal system. He has no violent crime/sexual crime history – strictly drug charges dating back to his high school years. The Federal facility is considering him for a diversion program: long term community based detention and rehabilitation as an alternative sentence. The program includes MAT as a central component. You have completed your initial assessments with him but the program requires that you meet with a family member. Chuck’s father and mother are deceased, and his ex-wife estranged but you contact an uncle close by who has been visiting him every 3rd Sunday. You sit down to start an intake with his uncle Robert (‘Bud’) Sanford, an iron worker with a family of his own. Right off the bat he says:
I looked into the program before I decided to meet with you and I have to say right off now so we are clear, I am not in favor of you giving drugs to prisoners. I don’t care how dope-sick they are—they did it to themselves. They never should have used drugs in the first place. I never started! My cousin’s kid Chuck is headed to prison now. Heck I say ‘kid’, he will be 30 in 2 years—he is a man now. He’s no child and he knew what he was doing. They caught him in a stolen car with a bunch of drugs crossing over the state line and got him on a bunch of felonies. He had a pile of money and he wouldn’t say where it was coming from. He’s doing his time…he should be in prison right? He’s been addicted to opiates since I don’t know when. He was on methadone maintenance for a couple years but then he quit that and went back to the lifestyle. So he has to be in prison, and if he suffers, it is for his crimes and well that’s just how it is. A man reaps what a man sows. I can’t think of any reason why you would take my money, and my friends, that we pay in taxes, and give this kid drugs in jail—like what is it, ‘Bupermorphine’ the program said? What kind of morphine is that? I visit him some Sundays, I’m a good uncle. “When I was in prison you visited me” said the Lord. If I was a criminal myself I couldn’t visit him but I am a church man so they let me in. He is so sick it’s pathetic. Sad really – I remember when he was a child. (Bud gets misty eyed, not quite crying). And there he sits, big eyes, sniffling and getting the chills and complaining about cramping all the time. So what if he can’t sleep? Maybe his conscious bothers him – who am I to judge? Give him Tylenol if he’s that sick – that should be enough. I am not cruel, I love him, but if it was me I would just take my punishment. Ok now so tell me about this program.