What Is TASC?
Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities:
The North Carolina TASC Network provides an objective and effective bridge between two separate institutions: justice and treatment. The justice system's legal sanctions reflect the community's concern for public safety, while the treatment community emphasizes therapeutic relationships as a means for changing behavior and reducing the personal suffering associated with substance abuse and mental illness. Under TASC supervision, community-based treatment is accessed for drug-involved and mentally ill offenders who would otherwise burden the justice system with their persistent and associated criminality.
TASC Mission
The mission of the North Carolina TASC Network is to provide and access quality services for drug-involved and mentally ill offenders. TASC combines the influence of legal sanctions with recommended levels of care to permanently interrupt the vicious cycle of addiction and criminality.
Why Is TASC Needed?
The cost of drug abuse is enormous…
- 500,000 emergency room cases annually
- More than 1.5 million Americans are arrested each year for drug law violations
- $56,000 - $90,000 to treat one TB patient in a correctional setting
- $20,000 per year for medication for each person with AIDS
- $12,600 for treatment in each case of Hepatitis B caused by needle sharing; Hepatitis leads to cirrhosis costing $67,000 for an average hospital stay.
What we know about treating offenders…
- Treatment works even for high-risk offenders.
- The use of incentives and sanctions yields higher retention and lower relapse rates than voluntary treatment.
- Offenders need continuity of care as they move through systems.
- A comprehensive approach is needed - many offenders lack adequate education, job skills, medical care or family support to remain crime and drug-free.
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