The state's new bail reform law is having an unintended consequence -- addicts who are arrested for small crimes are returning to the street before they can be steered into treatment programs.
Judge Vincent Dinolfo oversees the area's diversion courts and tells 13WHAM addicts who couldn't afford bail in the past now can no longer be held in jail.
Dinolfo says some of those who died during the recent spike in local overdoses might have been saved.
One option could be to allow judges to immediately waive low-level charges against addicts after their arrest so they can be sent to treatment.