From Inquest:
On a muggy October day, George was walking under a highway overpass when a passing police car pulled over. Within minutes, an officer found heroin, cocaine, and a needle on the ground nearby and arrested the elderly Black man on three counts of possession. Hours later George found himself in the county jail on a $5,000 bond that he couldn’t afford to pay.
After a difficult month behind bars, George was offered the option to enter a diversion program that could get him out of jail that same day and keep his record clear. If he went into drug treatment, he was told, the prosecutor would drop all charges against him. He accepted without thinking twice, grateful to be free again.
Once in his assigned outpatient treatment program, though, George ran into a new set of troubles. The staff told him he would be sent back to jail if his drug tests kept coming back positive, but he had been using heroin for well over a decade and found himself too sick to function when he tried to stop. He had to pay for testing and get across town for regular treatment sessions, but he couldn’t find the money for the fees or the bus fare. Continue reading >>>
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