The virginia department of criminal justice services proposes implementing the virginia rsat program

The Bureau of Justice Assistance awarded the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services $353,824 on October 1, 2025, under the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment for State Prisoners program (CFDA 16.593) to expand and strengthen substance use disorder treatment and reentry services across Virginia's correctional system.

The award funds the Virginia RSAT Program, which delivers structured residential treatment grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy to incarcerated individuals with substance use disorders or co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders in local and regional jails, juvenile detention centers, and state prisons. Services include pre-release case management, peer support specialist coordination, and collaboration with community services boards to ensure continuity of care upon release. Released individuals receive overdose prevention education and naloxone distribution when appropriate, with community-based aftercare programs continuing support post-release. The Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services will provide technical assistance and monitoring throughout the award period.

Performance occurs at the Department's headquarters in Richmond, Virginia, with activities extending across the Commonwealth's correctional facilities and community-based aftercare programs. The award period runs from October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2029. The program targets individuals leaving incarceration who face elevated overdose risk in the immediate post-release period, a critical concern given that overdose deaths remain among Virginia's leading preventable causes of mortality.

The purpose is to expand and strengthen substance use disorder treatment and reentry services in local and regional jails, juvenile detention centers, state prisons, and community-based aftercare programs throughout virginia. This work is critical in virginia, where overdose deaths remain one of the leading causes of preventable mortality and individuals leaving incarceration face an especially elevated risk in the first weeks following release. The intended beneficiaries of the project are incarcerated individuals with a substance use disorder (SUD) or CO-occurring SUD and mental health disorder and those recently released from a qualifying correctional SUD program that need additional recovery support in the community. Project activities include supporting correctional SUD programs in delivering structured residential programming grounded in cognitive behavioral, treatment services, and reentry planning, which will include pre-release case management, peer support specialists, and coordination with community services boards and community-based providers to ensure continuity of care upon release. Programs will provide overdose prevention education and naloxone upon release when appropriate, and aftercare programs will continue services post release. Virginia department of criminal justice services will provide information, technical assistance, and monitoring throughout the application process and award period.