Carbon-Monroe-Pike Drug and Alcohol Commission is looking to bring a new opiate and alcohol treatment option into the Carbon County Correctional Facility.

On Wednesday, Jamie Drake, executive director for the commission, spoke to the county prison board about a $50,000 Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency grant that would bring Vivitrol treatment into the prison for inmates who are close to release and are ready to commit to abstinence of drugs and alcohol.Drake said Vivitrol is a 30-day injection that is an alternative to Suboxone.The commission has already initiated the program in both the Monroe and Pike county correctional facilities and have seen success.Warden Timothy Fritz said that based on discussions, it appears there have been some good outcomes in Monroe with people on this program. The recidivism rate for those people, Fritz said, was around 4 percent."It is something that seems to be helping these individuals and I think it will be something that can help here as well," he said.If the commission is successful in securing the grant, it would hire a case manager to handle all operations at the jail for the program. The case manager would work with inmates to identify those eligible for the program, as well as help get them set up with housing, job opportunities and medical assistance before they are released from prison.Once identified, those in the Vivitrol program would receive the injection about two weeks before release. That injection would be free from the company. Additional injections would either be covered through medical assistance, or if they are not approved for assistance, additional money written into the grant.Drake said approximately $15,000 was written into Monroe's grant for additional injections, but the money wasn't used, adding that most are covered under medical assistance.She added that this program will partner well with the other re-entry efforts Carbon has been working on in recent years.Other businessIn other matters, Fritz announced the following items:• The GED program with Carbon Career & Technical Institute started at the prison on Sept. 14. A total of 10 males are currently in the program, and so far the teacher is quite pleased with where they are educationally. The only issue that still needs to be worked out is the testing since it cannot be done at the correctional facility.• The Guard1 Timekeeping system, which will help guards keep track of inmates during their rounds, will be installed on Oct. 10. The electronic buttons that will be used with the system were already installed on all the cells but need to be programmed.