Rep. Sannicandro Appointed to Special Commission on Substance Abuse Treatment

Framingham State Rep. Tom Sannicandro of Ashland was appointed to a special commission tasked with studying ways to improve treatment for incarcerated residents struggling with substance addictions.

“This is a group that needs to be looked at, because so many of the crimes that are committed have underlying substance abuse issues,” Sannicandro said, in a press release.

“If we can deal with the substance abuse issues these folks are dealing with, we can significantly lower crime and decrease the amount of money we’re spending in prison costs keeping non-violent offenders locked up,” said Sannicandro.

The Special Commission on Substance Abuse Treatment in the Criminal Justice System will investigate

1) developing criteria for mandated treatment or monitoring of nonviolent offenders

2) expanding effective, evidence-based addiction treatment programs for nonviolent substance addicted offenders

3) ways to evaluate and recommend improvements for specialty courts

4) other methods of expanding substance abuse treatment for those in the criminal justice system. It also will acquire data that evaluates the number and types of nonviolent offenses committed by substance-abuse addicted offenders.

The report is due to be released by Dec. 31 of this year.