![](https://i0.wp.com/wzbd.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/photoless-header-template-news.jpg?fit=252%2C144&ssl=1)
HAYDEN J EMRAH
WZBD
At the July 2nd Adams County Commissioners meeting, Executive Director of Adams County Community Corrections Ian Gilbert and Adams County Superior Court Judge Sam Conrad spoke with commissioners about a plan to institute a recovery program for incarcerated individuals within the county, complete with counseling, employment resources, and methods of acquiring housing.
It started in October when Adams County received settlement money that the state of Indiana was awarded from a national opioid lawsuit. These funds, which are set to be disbursed annually between 2022 and 2038, are split into unrestricted and restricted funding categories that have certain state requirements with how the money can be spent.
Currently, Adams County has $110,938.86 in unrestricted funds and $202,594.46 in restricted funds, totaling $313,533.32, specifically for the use of improving and expanding access to recovery and rehabilitation programs within the county.
In order to figure out how to effectively use these new funds, it was decided to create the Opioid Steering Committee, which consists of many leading Adams county officials and those in the emergency services community. This includes members such as County Prosecutor Jeremy Brown, Dr. Scott Smith of Adams Health Network, and both Judge Conrad and Ian Gilbert, who represented the committee to set forth their plan: using $125,000 in funding and a $500,000 grant towards the establishment of an IRACS program for Adams County.
The Integrated Reentry And Correctional Support program (IRACS) is a recent initiative by the Family and Social Services Administration in 2022 to create a series of resources for those incarcerated as a result of mental health or substance abuse disorders.
This consists of identifying individuals who meet these qualifications, meeting with counselors and therapists while still incarcerated, and being provided resources on how to search for employment opportunities and even replace personal documents such as social security cards or birth certificates. In addition, the program continues once the individual is out of incarceration, where they are provided with and followed up on with these services to help reintegrate them back into the community.
“What are all those circumstances that cause an individual to end up in front of me, and end up in jail? We can all sit here and speculate. At the end of the day, there’s a large amount of people in our jail population that don’t have that support on the outside, whoever that is, that pro-social, positive support,” spoke Judge Conrad regarding his support for the program.
There are currently around ten counties in Indiana with IRACS programs, and thanks to a series of factors, such as support from the sheriff’s office and Opioid Settlement Committee, Adams County has already secured $500,000 in funding to establish the program, and is one of the more likely candidates of the roughly 42 counties that have applied to start initiating the program.
Currently, the county corrections utilizes the Adams county Recovery Program, which works in a similar way to IRAC by providing counseling to inmates before and after release. But the current program is limited to 30 days after release, and doesn’t provide the scope and range of resources that would be provided under the IRACS program, most notably offering counseling services to qualifying inmates as soon as they are incarcerated. The $125,000 in funding will go towards the establishment of an office for these services once out of incarceration.
Commissioners were in full support of the idea, agreeing to approve the motion to be sent to the county council for further discussion and approval. They also approved $36,816 to be made available as grants to local recovery and rehabilitation centers, in which qualifying organizations apply to be rewarded by committee selection and county approval.
Steve Bailey concluded before making his notion to approve the plan, summarizing, ”I see the need, I’ve seen it personally, for a support system for individuals that are exiting incarceration. It’s tough, it’s tough for somebody that has connections, I can’t imagine what it’s like or how it could be successful for somebody that re-enters public life with no safety net out there, I can’t imagine how that’d be successful.”