A version of this interview aired during Morning Edition on WVIA Radio.
SARAH: Methadone can be a life saving medication for addiction, but some prisons refuse to administer the medication to inmates struggling with addiction, and policies on treatment can vary widely among county-run prisons. Tom Reise has been investigating how prisons handle addiction treatment for months for his latest and final story for WVIA, he joins us now. Tom, welcome to Morning Edition.
TOM: Welcome, how are you Sarah?
SARAH: I'm great. I should say welcome back, since your reporting on this story started when you were still with us here at WVIA. How did this story come about? It's been quite a long road.
TOM: I think in 2023, after speaking with some prison advocates and people who work in harm reduction, seeing people leave Luzerne County Prison and immediately helping them, many times they said getting back on addiction meds was one of the first things they wanted to do, and they thought the prison not offering certain medications was a big barrier to them in their rehabilitation.
SARAH: This required a lot of research and a lot of Right to Know requesting of Luzerne County Correctional Facility in particular, what were some of the challenges that you encountered in getting information on prisons and the inmates residing there?
TOM: The policy information that was shared was probably the easiest to get. Most county prisons in in Northeast Pennsylvania use a third-party health contractor, but those companies have documents in place already to say, hey, we can share this with you. They at least point to certain types of medications that are offered or procedures for someone that might be coming in with an active addiction. But getting county specific info from maybe wardens or a county manager might need to go through other departments first. Finding out information about specific inmates also poses a challenge.
SARAH: You encountered a lot of this when you were looking for information on Michael Keefe's records.
TOM: Yeah. Other prison reporters that I spoke with said transfer details within one prison might be a document you could find that a prison is happy to share, but there's a lot of details and data that are shielded from the public. Luzerne County Correctional Facility cited internal policies about sharing health data. One thing like Keefe mentioned was that he complained about not receiving methadone. We filed requests for formal complaints. The prison told us there were no formal complaints on file.
SARAH: Zooming out from Luzerne County, one of the things you found was that inmates at state facilities tend to have more reliable access to addiction treatment when they go in versus county facilities. So, why do you think county prisons have become this sort of patchwork of access, and what have the advocates you've been talking to said could help?
TOM: One of the first interviews I did for this with the State Department of Corrections ... medication assisted treatment coordinator, Steven Seitchick. He's the one that brought that to my attention. Because there's 18 or so state facilities and they all use one policy. There's 67 counties in Pa., not all of them have prisons. About ... 62 of them (have prisons). The irony that we found is that some prisons in Northeast Pa., like Lackawanna, have adopted policies that had Michael Keefe been arrested there with a valid methadone prescription, he would have been able to continue and not withdrawn from that med. And that differs, you know, just miles away in in Luzerne County. And I should note that the state prison system, it sounds like only within the past five or six years have these policies gotten more robust to account for addiction treatment, and it's taken people like him, he says that needed to push to kind of relieve stigmas around treating people.
SARAH: Yeah, so there's already plenty of stigma around treatment of addiction, addiction in general. How much is that amplified when you factor in incarceration?
TOM: I feel like it's hard to say how prison policies around addiction and stigma vary compared to like society at large. But looking at some of the policies, one of the long-term policies for for many prisons, I think most county prisons would say they offer methadone because in a specific instance, they offer it for pregnant inmates. They cite not wanting to harm an unborn child while someone is in prison, so wanting to protect that specific population versus the wider population, I think could speak to certain stigmas around who deserves access and who is considered to be suffering more than another. The conversation around other other parts of society and stigmas get brought into this and how treatment was decided.
SARAH: So, talk a little bit about what you're doing now, and are you looking into any prison policies in your new position?
TOM: I'm working for the Pittsburgh NPR station, WESA, they have done some reporting already in Allegheny County. So far in Harrisburg, I might be looking at more statewide stuff or the state prisons as a whole, but I'll mostly be looking at the state legislature with a focus on Western Pennsylvania lawmakers. I'm really curious to see what the response to this reporting might be, how advocates keep pushing it, and what might change in the near future.
SARAH: Well, we'll certainly be paying close attention to that. Tom, thanks so much for coming on. We miss you around here, but good luck in all you're doing at WESA.
TOM: Miss you guys too, thanks so much for having me on.
Editor's Note: Reporter Tom Riese began researching and writing this story at WVIA News earlier this year. He is now a reporter with Pittsburgh affiliate WESA.
