Quote of note
“In Travis County, just like nationally, being homeless, having a mental health need or being incarcerated are key indicators to whether you are at a higher risk of accidental overdose death,” Travis County Judge Andy Brown said at a June 27 press conference.
By the numbers
- Of the 417 individuals who overdosed in 2022, 89 of them were booked into jail and released in either 2021 or 2022.
- Of the 89 people in the dataset, 31 overdosed within 60 days of leaving jail.
- A person is eight times more likely to die of a drug overdose in the first 12 months after leaving jail than anyone else in the county.
The data also shows people with shorter jail sentences might be more likely to overdose.
“In fact, of the 89 people who died of overdose after regaining custody, 31 suffered their deadly overdose within 60 days of leaving our facility,” Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez said at the conference. “More than half of them were in custody in less than two days.”
Brown added that a person's highest risk of an accidental overdose is within the first 30 days after they leave jail.
The why
Travis County leaders are collecting overdose-related data to better understand what communities are at risk for accidental overdose and what policies can be implemented to stop them.
“We can also make sure that when people leave jail, they're connected to a health care system, connected [to] peer support specialists that are informed by harm reduction practices, so making sure that CommUnity Care, Central Health, any other providers have more of a warm handoff after people leave jail, whether they're in jail for a day, an hour or two years,” Brown said.
