When Curt Howard left prison in September 2014, he was doing OK. He moved in with his mother, and he found a job.
Then Howard, a recovering addict, reunited with his former girlfriend, who still was using heroin, he said.
“My boss is telling me, ‘Why you moving out?’ My mom is telling me, ‘Why you moving out?’ Everyone is telling me not to move out — even my friends,” he said.
Nine days after he moved in with his girlfriend, Howard was arrested for possession of narcotics.
It was part of a familiar pattern for Howard, 27, who has been in and out of prison for drug and theft charges most of his adult life.
Howard is not alone. Tippecanoe County Jail is full of men and women who abuse drugs and cycle through the criminal justice system over and over again.
Research indicates that people who return to jail repeatedly make up a large portion of the jail population, according to a report from the Vera Institute of Justice. In Chicago, for example, the same 21 percent of inmates accounted for half of all admissions to jail.
To stem the cycle of release and reincarceration and prevent people from committing new crimes when they leave jail, Tippecanoe County Jail is expanding mental health services and launching a program designed to help inmates develop healthy support networks in the community.
“The long-term goal is to get advocates or someone out there to actually work with them on the outside to make sure they have their housing, employment, health care — whatever they need,” said Sheriff Barry Richard.
Many issues, few resources
Many inmates who repeatedly return to jail have mental health or addiction problems. Nationally, 68 percent of people in local jails have a history of abusing drugs, alcohol or both, according to Vera.
Inmates also are significantly more likely to suffer from mental illness than the general population. Nearly 15 percent of men and 31 percent of women in jail suffer from serious mental illnesses, according to Vera. And 60 percent of inmates reported symptoms of mental illness in the past year.