PROBATION OFFICERS ADDRESS ADDICTION AMONG
OFFENDERS THROUGH SPECIALIZED TRAINING

Nearly 400 Probation Officers have become certified as Substance Abuse Specialists to address the increase in drug addiction and alcoholism among those who are placed on probation supervision. Eighty-six percent of adults placed on probation in Massachusetts have substance abuse issues which represents the highest percentage in more than 15 years.

The Substance Abuse Specialist Training Program was created in 2002 to give officers added knowledge about how to handle addiction suffered by the offenders they supervise.

To become a certified Substance Abuse Specialist, a Probation Officer must complete a four-day training program, according to Chief Probation Officer Dan Ryan who together with Regional Supervisor Rick O'Neil developed the curriculum for the training. The training program is the brainchild of Ryan, an authority on substance abuse and addiction.

Ryan based the training on two key criteria: the intensity and duration of the use of drugs and alcohol among offenders and the lack of family connection or support network.

"Substance abuse is a disease like cancer, like heart disease, like hypertension. This training underscores that this problem is a brain disease and helps Probation Officers understand how to help the people they supervise as well as provide and/or direct them to the necessary resources to help offenders and their families manage this disease and reduce offender recidivism," Ryan said.

The Intensive training program teaches Probation Officers how to apply the Supreme Judicial Court's Standards on Substance Abuse to a case and how to make verbal and written substance abuse assessments for the court. Participants explore the links between brain disease and denial. They also learn about relapse and recovery as well as change issues and how to properly supervise a substance abuse case as well as understand the relationship between public safety and recovery issues.

"Substance abuse is not a character flaw. It is a chronic relapsing brain disease," said Ryan. AThrough this training and certification process, Probation Officers receive the most up-to-date information on how to address this issue that is not only effecting probationers and their families, it is plaguing society."