By admin 
TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – A new memorandum from Pima County Detainee and Crisis Systems shows only 3% of high-risk inmates enrolled in a county rehabilitation program are returning to jail within a month.
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That is down from 27% reported in the 2025 annual report. but new data also shows a significant gap in outcomes once those individuals are released.
Javier Arvizu spent 11 years cycling in and out of jail.
He now works as a rehabilitation manager for Pima County’s Inmate Navigation, Enrollment, Support, and Treatment program, which targets inmates who struggle with mental health and drug use and are most likely to reoffend.
“The curriculum we teach here, it teaches us to question ourselves why we act the way we do, so it definitely changed my perspective on life,” Arvizu said.
INVEST Operations Manager Keith Jeffrey said the program focuses on basic needs before employment.
“What we do at INVEST is we start at the bottom. What are your basic needs? I know you need a job, but if you’re still actively using, how are you going to keep a job?” Jeffrey said.
Despite the drop in recidivism, the data reveal a more complicated picture.
41% of Pima County’s opioid overdose deaths from January 2026 to May 2026 involved people who had been released from jail within the last five years.
Dr. Jeff Alvarez, medical director of the Pima County Jail and Pima County Detainee and Crisis Systems, said more than 75% of those individuals never started treatment while incarcerated.
“It’s not that they didn’t want treatment, it’s that they just got out so quickly they couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to start the medication right away…or a lot of patients will say, I don’t need it. And so the harder it becomes if they refuse the program,” Alvarez said.
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Jeffrey said even inmates who do receive treatment return to environments where substance abuse is present.
“To get out of jail, and you walk out to the bus stop, and there’s people that have been on the bus all day using substances. You want that person to resist the temptation,” Jeffrey said.
He said reliable transportation directly from the jail to treatment facilities is essential to closing that gap.
“Substance abuse disorder, it doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t take breaks, we’re going to need community agencies that are here 24 hours a day, seven days a week, ready to pick up their participants from the door of that jail and take them to treatment,” Jeffrey said.
Alvarez and DACS Director Paula Perrera plan to present the report’s findings and recommendations to county leadership on Tuesday, July 14.
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