Substance-abuse program in prison changing women’s lives 30.4% of inmates who participate in ExCell return to prison, compared to 42.6% who don’t.

[The Streets Don't Love You Back]

(Utah Department of Corrections courtesy photo) Cindy Chatterson, center, beams as as staff, officers, friends and family gather at a graduation program Wednesday for the prison's ExCell substance abuse program. Also shown are Stacy Westfahl, left, and Amy Pehrson, right.
Substance-abuse program in prison changing women’s lives
30.4% of inmates who participate in ExCell return to prison, compared to 42.6% who don’t.
By Brooke Adams | The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published Jun 29 2012 12:17 pm • Last Updated Jul 02 2012 11:03 pm
For Cindy Chatterson, life fell apart the same way it does for a lot of women serving time at the Utah State Prison.

She got into a bad relationship, became addicted to meth and began forging checks to pay for the drug — which is how she got busted. Chatterson first came to prison in 2003. Less than two years later, she was back. But like her first stint, it did little to change a lifestyle she calls a "way of survival for me." She relapsed 18 months after being released, resorting to drugs and alcohol, she says, to ease the pain of losing custody of her five children. Once again, she was sent to prison.

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"It was a sick cycle," she said.

She speaks in the past tense because Chatterson, 45, is hopeful the cycle is over — hopeful that this time, thanks to the prison’s substance abuse program, she’s prepared to lead a different kind of life when she is released a year from now.

The program is called ExCell, and on Wednesday Chatterson and 23 other women, including some who have already been paroled or moved to county jails, officially graduated from the program.

http://www.sltrib.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.common.streams.StreamServer....$TmL8$daE2N3K4ZzOUsqbU5sYuVKW3wdHcxRIaJ1KBSX6J$WCsjLu883Ygn4B49Lvm9bPe2QeMKQdVeZmXF$9l$4uCZ8QDXhaHEp3rvzXRJFdy0KqPHLoMevcTLo3h8xh70Y6N_U_CryOsw6FTOdKL_jpQ-&CONTENTTYPE=image/jpeg There were smiles and laughs, songs and a tap dance-style stomp, and many tears as the women celebrated the kind of accomplishment that has been often elusive in their lives.

"I’m a changed girl," Shacoy Saunders chanted as she performed a rap she wrote.

ExCell, set up about a dozen years ago, is a therapeutic program located in one building at the Timpanogos Women’s Correctional Facility in Draper. Women are enrolled in the program either through a judge’s order or after the prison lists such treatment as a high priority in their case action plan. Some women, like Chatterson, also request the help.

In mid-June, there were some 207 women at the prison who had a history of substance abuse or were serving a sentence due to illegal drug use who were eligible for ExCell. But the program is already overbooked.

While the ExCell building houses 143 women, the program can only provide active treatment — individual and peer therapy groups — for 72 residents because of funding limitations. The rest participate in other aspects of the program aimed at changing attitudes, beliefs and behaviors while they wait, which means every aspect of residents’ lives is intertwined with the positive social thinking that underlies the community’s day-to-day operation.30.4% of inmates who participate in ExCell return to prison, compared to 42.6% who don’t