How Dogs Are Revolutionizing Mental Health in an Ohio Jail
Once the “overdose capital” of the United States, Ohio’s Montgomery County is now championing novel treatments for mental health—specifically of the four-legged, furry variety—and the results are nothing short of dramatic.
Montgomery County Sheriff Rob Streck said bringing therapy dogs into the jail had a positive response “right away.”
Inmates are fighting less, detoxing is slightly less painful, and stress is lifted.
Further, inmates who previously wouldn’t speak come out and interact with the dogs, Streck said. That interaction is often the catalyst to seeking additional help.
“The biggest thing we took away from it was it really helped with our use-of-force rates. That number drops significantly, almost 60 percent, when the therapy dogs are around,” Montgomery County Sheriff Rob Streck told The Epoch Times.
“And then there’s the dog handler there that knows how to deal with issues. So, it helped [inmates] open up and deal with some anxiety.”
Streck said when someone is booked into his jail, they’re often angry and not necessarily willing to talk with staff. Additionally, inmates are often forced into detoxing from a drug habit.
That, plus other factors inherent to incarceration, can lead to a volatile situation for inmates and jail staff and result in situations in which staff must use force to stop an altercation.
Streck said his staff brought him the idea of therapy dogs and he was happy to try it.
“We’re obviously looking for innovative ways to try to help with these situations,” he said.
Hope and Healing
“If you talk to somebody who’s detoxing from these horrible, strong drugs that we have out there right now, they’re willing to risk additional years on a sentence just to try to sneak drugs in because the fear of detox is so high,” Streck said.
“It’s just a miserable process they have to go through. But we see individuals who may have been lying in bed for two or three days that haven’t moved, other than to run to the restroom or do other things they need to do, that will actually get up and engage with the dogs.”
Streck explained that research shows that dogs have a calming effect, which helps people struggling with depression, bipolar disorder, autism, ADHD, and PTSD, because dogs decrease the stress-related hormone cortisol. That, in turn, helps lower blood pressure and reduce feelings of loneliness.
“We get inmates that may not want to associate with our corrections officers, mental health staff, or medical staff,” Streck said. “But all of a sudden, we start bringing the dog around, and then [inmates] feel more accepting or engaging, and the next thing you know, they’re looking at services or talking to our mental health people … The dogs really help people with mental health issues.”
Teresa Russell, the director of criminal justice outreach in Dayton, Ohio, agreed.
“The dog’s just kind of the trigger that gets them to engage. This program was brought in to offset some of the [other] mental services that were already occurring in the jail,” she told The Epoch Times.
“The inmates learn about the dogs that come to visit because a lot of these dogs are rescue dogs, and they’ve had a lot of trauma, or they had a lot of abuse, so then they can relate. Trauma knows trauma.”
By simply bringing the dogs around to visit inmates, Russell and Streck say they’ve positively impacted inmates’ lives. Streck said that if a psychiatrist or someone working in the jail notices someone is having a “difficult time,” they can request the inmate receive a one-on-one visit from a dog.
Having the dogs around helps inmates remember their pets at home, and their home life, and recognize that, for most inmates, their time in incarceration is temporary, Russell said.
“If mental health isn’t treated, if inmates aren’t offered any resources or intervention, anxiety kicks in, anger kicks in, concern about ‘What’s going to happen in my case, what’s happening at home?’ that’s when people start getting antsy. That’s when fighting starts to occur, and we see those action responses and that use-of-force.” she said.
Looking for Solutions
In 2017, Montgomery County, Ohio, was named the “overdose capital of the United States.” That year, there were 566 overdose deaths in the county—a significant increase from 130 in 2011, according to Montgomery County’s Community Overdose Action Team.
Today, however, Montgomery officials and the community exemplify what can happen when they come together to address mental health and drug addiction.
After receiving the unwanted moniker of “overdose capital,” officials and the community implemented a plan of attack that included outpatient addiction services and mental health programs in partnership with private physicians and hospital networks. They also increased funding for treatment facilities and programs.
The initiatives proved successful, and during the first year of implementation, overdose deaths decreased by half, Russell said.
A therapy dog visits an inmate at the Montgomery County jail in Ohio. (Courtesy of Christine Bevins)The success also spurred Streck to look for and embrace novel ways to help inmates struggling with mental health and substance abuse issues while in his custody.
“You know, the jail has these large populations of individuals with mental health addiction issues,” Streck said. “They struggle with all kinds of emotions, especially anxiety and shame. Depression is huge. And they’re sitting there just waiting on their court cases, which unfortunately can continue going for a long time—the legal system sometimes can be very long to get through.”
A Novel Approach
Built in 1965 out of steel and concrete, Streck describes the Montgomery County jail as “by no means therapeutic.”
“There’s some blue scattered about, but you know, it’s just one of those places that look like you would imagine a jail looks like. It’s not designed with open spaces and therapeutic areas with murals, and things that modern jails are designed with,” he said.
Russell concurred. “We have a lot of barriers and struggles with facility design, so we have to try to think outside the box on how to offset the mental health services and the programming that we currently have.”
In 2019, Streck and his staff partnered with the Miami Valley Pet Therapy Association and launched the jail initiative.
Volunteers with specialized training donate their time and bring their dogs to the jail at least twice a month, Streck said. It’s a voluntary program, so it costs the taxpayers nothing.
Once at the jail, the handlers are escorted throughout the facility and inmates are welcome to approach the dogs, pet them, and ask the handler questions.
Healing for All
Inmates aren’t the only ones who have benefited from the therapy dogs. Jail staff and dispatchers are impacted, too, Streck said.
“Dispatchers really love having the dogs in there,” he said.
“You know, my dispatchers are down there taking a call where somebody’s mad about a neighbor parking in front of their house, hanging up within seconds. Now they’re taking a baby not breathing, or a homicide call. So, dispatch is one of the most stressful places we have.”
The therapy dogs are so popular among dispatchers that they’ve started asking for their own, which Streck said he’s looking into.
When asked if he thought other jails should add a therapy dog program, Streck responded, “You know, each sheriff’s going to make up his own mind. I tell my staff, ‘I’m open to anything,’ if we believe that it will help the staff, or the inmates, or the community.
“I have sent information to numerous sheriffs throughout Ohio who have heard us discuss this at training—we all get together several times a year for training—so, there are sheriffs out there in Ohio that are on board with this. I mean, we believe it helps.”
“One of our big things is promoting emotional wellness—for all of our inmates, for all my staff,” Streck said. “We’re trying to get true therapeutic programs with correctional, medical, and psychological help.”
