VENUS, Texas — In the effort to keep inmates from using drugs behind bars, Texas may have found an unlikely ally — the inmates themselves.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is now looking to expand its Recovery Housing Opportunity Program to facilities across the state. The voluntary addiction recovery program groups inmates together in a single cell block under the guidance of other, specially trained inmates dubbed “peer recovery coaches.”
“They are not counselors, they are not therapists, they are simply that peer saying, ‘Hey, I’ve been in the darkness, let me help you get out,'” explained Andrea Canul, TDCJ’s Deputy Director of Substance Use Programs.
She said the six-month program includes hours of addiction recovery programming each day — and a community of accountability among the participating inmates for the remainder of the time.
In addition to the support of the peer recovery coaches who live in the same cell block, the program has strict disciplinary rules and a zero-tolerance policy for substance abuse, with frequent drug tests, Canul said.
Since the program began in the TDCJ system in 2022, Canul said it has expanded to 15 prisons, recently including the Sanders Estes facility near Midlothian.
Inside, paintings with messages of encouragement line the walls, and the inmates sit around a horseshoe of folding tables to listen to their recovery coach’s message.
“You’re going to have one day when everything is going great and you’re going all the way up then all of sudden it’s like all the way back down,” preached Julian Alejo, one of the two peer recovery coaches on this block.
Alejo has served 11 years of a 30-year sentence for aggravated robbery, he said. Leading the peer recovery program has given him a new purpose.
“I found a career in prison,” Alejo said with a laugh. “This position I have is actually a free world position.”
He said being available for his fellow inmates struggling with addiction helps them through the program — so does being able to speak with someone who has been in their shoes.
“They have field ministers, they have life coaches, but none of the individuals get to live with those individuals,” Alejo said.
The inmates in the program also spoke favorably about it.
“It actually helped me,” said Kareem Martin, who said drugs had been a part of his life since age 12. “When I need them, they’re there for me,” he said. “I ain’t never had that. My entire life. I never had that.”
The goal, explained Canul, is for these inmates to re-enter the general population as role models. It also helps TDCJ cut down on the number of inmates using drugs in prison.
“Now they walk with their head up, now they know that they have different tools to use and so then it just continues to spread,” Canul said.