VCDC Programs Help Inmates Reenter Community, Warden Tells Commissioners

LOS LUNAS, Inmates at the Valencia County Detention Center are able to access several programs to help them reenter the community successfully. At a recent Valencia County Commission meeting, VCDC Warden Randy Gutierrez gave commissioners a briefing on the various programs offered for inmates at the jail, including the MAT, SUCCEED and RISE programs - Medicated Assisted Treatment for substance misuse, Substance Use Disorder Education and Reach Intervene Support Engage - as well as recent community engagement projects.

The county’s reentry offerings are anchored by MAT, the jail’s Medicated Assisted Treatment for substance misuse program. Sarah Flores, the MAT re-entry specialist for VCDC, described how the program maintains medication continuity and pairs pharmacologic care with counseling. “By law, we have to give everybody their medication. A lot (of inmates) come in and they’re on (something like) Suboxone, so we just continue their treatment,” Flores said in a separate interview. “While they’re on the medication, they get individual counseling and peer-support sessions.”

Flores said MAT at VCDC also includes what the jail terms moral recognition training to help participants take responsibility and change thinking patterns tied to addiction. “We’re trying to help them change the way they think. In their addiction, they play the victim a lot. ‘It’s everyone else’s fault I use because of this and that.’ Moral recognition therapy helps them come to terms with their addiction. They start to own their behaviors," she said. Inmates also do goal-oriented planning for themselves, Flores said, setting short- and long-term goals.

The briefing also highlighted growth in the RISE program - Reach Intervene Support Engage - which Flores described as focusing on mental health. “With MAP you have your addiction and long-term substance use disorders,” she said. “RISE is your mental health clients.” The article printed that line exactly; clarification of the acronym MAP versus MAT is a point for follow-up.

SUCCEED - Substance Use Disorder Education - was listed among the offerings but the briefing provided no additional operational details about that program in the available summary.

Warden Gutierrez’s presentation linked in-jail programs to broader community outreach. The detention center hosted a September community barbecue that fed 220 community members and provided 47 to-go trays to unhoused people, focused on substance misuse recovery resources and organizations. For Thanksgiving, staff served 280 meals to those in need in the community, and for Christmas VCDC held a toy distribution for children of incarcerated parents.

The briefing gave local officials and residents an overview of services aimed at reducing harms tied to substance use and untreated mental illness, but several data gaps remain. The briefing did not include enrollment numbers, program duration, outcome metrics such as treatment completion or recidivism, funding and continuity-of-care details after release, or the exact date of the commission meeting. Reporters and commissioners seeking more detail should request program enrollment and outcome data, curriculum descriptions for moral recognition training and SUCCEED, and clarification from Warden Randy Gutierrez and Sarah Flores about the MAP reference.

For Valencia County residents, the programs and recent outreach signal a local effort to link treatment and community support with reentry work; whether those efforts reduce overdose risk and improve long-term stability will depend on transparent data, sustained funding, and stronger ties between jail-based care and community providers.