By Ella Adams.
Former patients of a treatment facility run by the Hampden County Sheriff’s Office— along with Dorchester City Councillor John FitzGerald— are going to bat for the program as lawmakers weigh moving all Section 35 involuntary commitment facilities for substance use out of jails or prisons and into facilities licensed or approved by the Departments of Public or Mental Health.
Ludlow’s Stonybrook Stabilization and Treatment Center treats men struggling with substance use disorder who have been involuntarily committed for up to 90 days under the state law known as Section 35.
Sen. Cindy Friedman and Reps. Marjorie Decker and Margaret Scarsdale have filed a proposal requiring that facilities or secure facilities where men are sent for treatment may not include “any jail or correctional facility or any other facility funded, controlled, or administered by a county sheriff, EOPSS, or any agency under EOPSS jurisdiction.”
Any such facility would have to be operated and licensed or approved by the Department of Public Health or the Department of Mental Health, under the proposal.
Friedman told her colleagues on Monday (Oct. 6) that people in treatment need to be sent to “a clinical setting, not a criminal setting,” though several people treated at Stonybrook argued that Stonybrook being housed in a correctional facility didn’t cancel the benefits of a well-resourced program that they say saved their lives.
“I know this whole bill is about Stonybrook being too much like a jail setting, right?”
said Timothy Rohan, a Stonybrook graduate during a public hearing on Monday. “And my opinion is very far from that. I’ve been to other state-run facilities for detox, and honestly, Stonybrook is way nicer than most of them regarding staff, even beds, food — especially food — aftercare, case managers and clinicians,” he said.
FitzGerald, whose district includes the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, recalled visiting Stonybrook to understand how Boston could better provide care for those struggling with substance use.
“It’s an opportunity that should be modeled after, not shut down,” FitzGerald said of Stonybrook, suggesting the facility in Ludlow could expand and pointing to a lack of treatment beds available to help people struggling at “Mass. and Cass.”
“There’s nothing in [Stonybrook] that looks or makes it feel like you are sending people to jail. I’m very conscious of that effort — of saying, we’re not just gathering people up here to fill in the facility and make sure the streets are clean, this is about getting folks the help they need,” FitzGerald said.
