Director says Robeson County Offenders Resource Center has saved Robeson County more than $964,000 from its drug rehab programs

Substance abuse counselor and director presented a positive report on its re-entry program to the Robesaon County Board of Commissioners during its regular monthly meeting last week.

The center, at 120 W. 6th St., in Lumberton, offers “comprehensive addiction treatment and support services, including aftercare, rehab, outpatient care, therapy, vocational programming and recovery coaching with the goal of helping individuals fully rehabilitate from opioid, substance and drug addiction,” its website states.

Powell said the state also was expected to make a presentation to the board, but the representatives were unable to make the morning meeting in time. That, he added, would be put off for another day.

As part of the center’s comprehensive re-entry program, Powell said, services include a drug treatment program basically for individuals who are on probation or parole and have a drug problem.

“They also have an inpatient program here in Robeson County located on Highway 711 – the old prison,” he said. “They do a 90-day inpatient program for individuals having a drug problem. One of the reasons these programs have come into place was because of prison closings. And they had to do something to help that population.

“It’s conducive for them to start their own treatment program,” Powell said. “Since 1996, with the former Criminal Justice partnership program, it has moved along up to present date with the prison closings, and we have been doing a tremendous job. Our program outcome is to serve at least 150 individuals per year. We had been doing that up to COVID, and we do referral treatment programs with Cherry Hospital (in Goldsboro) … In that, the individuals have what they call ‘criminal thinking.’ We are proud to have one of our own working with us in those programs.”

Powell called them “very successful programs,” with individuals coming back from prison or currently on probation. The state rate of successful completion, he said, is about 40-some percent.

“Proud to tell this board that the Robeson County success rate is 74.9%. So we’re doing a tremendous job there working with these individuals,” he told members of the Robeson County Board of Commissioners. “Not going back to prison and not committing new crimes.”

Along with that, Powell said, “We have the pretrial services, again, with all the prison closings. We wanted to do something in this county and with this board. And previous boards looked at this program some years ago, and this program is very successful. We right now have roughly around 78 individuals in the program. Our goal is hopefully 200 individuals. “Those individuals, as we say, with nonviolent charges – but the law states otherwise.

“So,” he added, “we have to conform to what the judges do. In that, we do child support,” Powell said.

He told board members that the center was able to do a study for the pretrial program which had 137 individuals at the time with 90 admissions.

He said he wanted to focus on just the pretrial program, which contributed to a total cost savings of $964,620 to Robeson County.

“We were unable at this time when we put our proposal together to get the medical savings that occurred in our jail,” said Powell. “And also we were unable to get the child support payments that were made to go to this that would take us to well over $1 million per year.”

Since the establishment of the program, Powell said, “We have been doing well over $1 million in savings to this county from our county jail in medical working with the partnership of Social Services’ child support with tremendous advocacy.”

The re-entry program got underway in 2013. “It helps to get those back on track,” he said.

Commissioner Tom Taylor said, “You’re doing a good job.”

This program, Powell emphasized, is completely funded by the state.