KINGSTON – The Ulster County Sheriff’s Office Opioid Response as County Law Enforcement (ORACLE) program has been held up as an example for other law enforcement by the National Rural Justice Collaborative.
Sheriff Juan Figueroa said ORACLE “brings together mental health experts, social workers, peer recovery advocates, care managers, and other experts to save lives.”
One woman who moved from incarceration to redemption is now working for the sheriff’s program, after being addicted to opioids, entering a life of crime and spending four years in state prison.
Jessica Merck, 33, a native of Stone Ridge who now lives in Kingston, got out after finding the tools she needed to change her life. She became a volunteer with ORACLE and last year she was offered a full-time job with the program.
“I thought it was a setup because what sheriff’s office was going to hire someone who has three violent felonies on their record and it was surreal to me,” she said. “I kept looking at the sheriff and said, ‘are you guys sure you want to do this, but they did, they wanted me and nobody on this team has ever treated me like anything but family.”
Merck said she has been able to “take the struggle that I went through and turn it into a positive.” She is able “to build relationships with people who are struggling and facing very large stigma against them. It feels great to help people overcome their challenges and reenter society.”
