Washington / Baltimore HIDTA Initiatives

Treatment

W/B HIDTA Treatment Initiatives

The W/B HIDTA funds treatment/criminal justice initiatives that provide integrated drug treatment services and criminal justice supervision for hard-core substance dependent offenders. Treatment initiatives must incorporate drug testing and graduated sanctions for all offenders. They must include an assessment of the individual’s drug use and criminal history, and placement in the appropriate level of service, such as out-patient, intensive out-patient, residential or after care.

Focus and Impact

2023 HIDTA Results:

The W/B HIDTA granted $2,369,590 in 2023 to address identified gaps in the treatment and recovery systems for the W/B HIDTA communities.

Adult-focused treatment initiatives must incorporate drug testing and graduated sanctions for all offenders. They must also include an assessment of the individual’s drug use and criminal history, and placement in the appropriate level of service.

2026 Treatment and Prevention
Request for Proposals

Washington/Baltimore HIDTA has issued a Request for Proposals for the Advancing Interventions to Mitigate Substances (AIMS) in HIDTA Communities grant funding, which will begin July 1, 2026. The primary purpose of the AIMS grant is to support integration of evidence-based substance use prevention and treatment strategies into systems of care within communities across the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA region. AIMS funding supports the following objectives applied to youth, youth caregiver, juvenile justice, and criminal justice populations in Washington/Baltimore HIDTA communities:

  1. Address identified gaps in substance use prevention, early intervention, or treatment systems.
  2. Increase access to substance use disorder treatment in criminal/juvenile justice systems.
  3. Expand existing community-based substance use prevention, early intervention, or treatment strategies.
  4. Enhance or strengthen current strategies with additional evidence-based interventions.
  5. Implement and evaluate innovative strategies to address unique prevention, early intervention, or treatment needs in HIDTA communities.

Eligible entities include:

  • Nonprofits with 501(c) (3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education)
  • State Governments
  • County Governments
  • City or Township Governments
  • Special District Governments

All proposed grant activities must be delivered in a HIDTA-designated county in the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA region.  A list of eligible counties can be found here:  https://www.nhac.org/hidta-counties-by-state/. The deadline for applications is 11:59 p.m. on February 28, 2025. Applicants should email their proposals to Dr. Lora Peppard, Deputy Director for Treatment and Prevention, at lpeppard@wb.hidta.org.  All proposals should include submission of a budget, justification, and narrative. The complete RFP and budget template are provided here.

HIDTA 2017 Recidivism Report

All W/B HIDTA treatment/criminal justice initiatives are required to supply data on client performance to assist in evaluating the initiative. An independent evaluation is conducted annually by the Institute for Behavior and Health, Inc. The W/B HIDTA’s treatment/criminal justice Initiatives have consistently proved their effectiveness and have exceeded national performance averages for clients in this population.

Since the W/B HIDTA Program is a crime control program, its key measure is recidivism. The recidivism rates for all W/B HIDTA treatment initiatives have ranged between 28 percent and 42 percent, while the national average is 70 percent.

The evaluations support current research that demonstrates when treatment programs and criminal justice agencies collaborate, re-arrest rates, as well as drug use, are reduced. When programs include evidence-based principles, they are successful in treating substance dependent offenders.