In this month’s episode of The Maine Monitor Radio Hour, Maine Monitor health care reporter Emily Bader spoke with editor Kate Cough about Bader’s recent project on treating addiction in Maine’s jails.
The four-part series, which was supported by the Pulitzer Center, took a close look at how county jails are providing addiction treatment, exploring the types of treatment being used, the experience of one woman who went through it, the growing medical costs jails are facing and the work being done to connect prisoners with resources once they leave.
Maine’s county jails have been required to provide medications for opioid use disorder for the past seven years, the result of a landmark court ruling in 2019. Jail officials have come to see the value of such treatment, in part for the potential it holds to help reduce recidivism, but finding the money to pay for the medication remains an ongoing challenge amid a broader debate about how jails are funded.
Medical costs at the state’s 15 jails have been rising in recent years, growing nearly 40 percent between 2023 and 2025, according to a January report from the Maine County Corrections Professional Standards Council. That report also estimated, for the first time, how much jails are spending on addiction and mental health treatment, a total that came to over $12.6 million last year. As these costs, and the costs to staff the jails, have risen, the amount the state contributes to Maine’s county-run jails has largely stayed the same, leaving counties –– and their taxpayers –– responsible for a growing share of the expenses.
The series also explored how the jails in Franklin and Somerset counties are rethinking addiction treatment. The two rural jails are the only ones in Maine providing Brixadi, an extended-release, injectable form of buprenorphine that is used to treat opioid use disorder and is considered the gold standard for addiction treatment for high-risk individuals, such as people who are incarcerated, because of its long-acting effects and built-in protections against misuse and diversion.
You can listen to the episode here. Tune in to listen live the first Thursday of every month at 4 p.m. on WERU 89.9 FM.
Read the full series: Treating addiction in Maine’s jails
