A custodial death report was filed on 45-year-old Susan Dee Reddick by the Travis County Sheriff’s Department in Austin, Texas. She suffered accidental physical trauma and was moved from Travis County Jail to Dell Seton Medical Center. The report shows that she was pronounced dead on February 26, 2021. 

A reality faced by county sheriffs across the nation is that the jails have become society’s primary drug treatment centers. As many sheriffs have pointed out when speaking on this subject, jails are not built or equipped to operate primarily as medical facilities. More and more county jails offer options that allow inmates to safely detox from opioids and then remain drug-free before and after release.

It is widely estimated that at least two-thirds of the entire jail population in the U.S. is made up of inmates with dependence or drug abuse problems.

Medication-assisted addiction treatment (MAT) that is offered behind bars includes the use of such drugs as buprenorphine and methadone, among others. One drug-addicted inmate was allowed to continue using synthetic opioid substitutes in jail. This tempered his cravings and presumably helps him stay away from more powerful and destructive opioids. He commented that an essential factor that determines success or failure is whether or not an inmate wants to get clean.

Learn more in Part 1 of this ongoing series.

On this website, there is never an intent to infer wrongs on persons or entities. The purpose of posts added to this site is to help inmates now or previously held in county jails in Texas.

–Guest Contributor