State legislators voiced strong support Wednesday for a bill expected to reduce prison populations and save the state more than $240 million over 10 years.
The legislation would enact 19 reforms recommended by a bipartisan commission in December. But one reform — sending offenders with underlying drug addictions to get treatment within thirty days of a court order — requires more funding than is currently in the budget.
“The judges and the treatment providers are suggesting that in order to put more people into treatment and outside the division of corrections once a judge has ordered that, that more resources would be needed to amp up those beds,” said Christopher Shank, deputy chief of staff to Gov. Larry Hogan and the head of the commission that recommended the changes.
The average waiting time for a bed is currently 167 days.
Jessica Honke, the policy and advocacy director at the National Alliance of Mental Illness of Maryland, called the long wait unfair.
“The longer you wait to get access and treatment, the more intense the symptoms of a mental illness or someone with a substance use disorder may have,” she said.
If the reforms are implemented, some of the money saved by cutting the prison population will be reinvested in treatment programs.
But the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has said it would need an initial investment of at least $3 million more than its current budget to send more offenders for treatment.
To be sure, there’s some money in Gov. Larry Hogan’s budget for substance abuse treatment. Shank said the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention also is looking into using federal money to pay for some drug treatment beds.