The state and a coalition of private groups are launching a substance abuse treatment program they hope will get convicts off drugs and save Maryland millions.

The project, which is slated to begin within a few months, will provide drug-addicted inmates with at least a year of treatment while they are in prison. The idea is that these inmates will make good candidates for parole, getting them released early.

After their release, they will get more substance abuse treatment and access to help with housing, job training, education and other services.

"The beauty of the whole thing is that because incarceration is so expensive, we can take the money saved from the incarceration and use those savings to pay for the treatment," said Diana Morris, director of the Open Society Institute-Baltimore, a foundation that works on social justice issues.

OSI-Baltimore helped design the program and will work to implement it, along with the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services and the Safe and Sound Campaign of Baltimore. Safe and Sound, a foundation that works on child and family issues, will administer it.

Five foundations have pledged a total of $2.2 million to cover the upfront treatment costs. However, organizers believe the project will pay for itself eventually.

They project that the program will save the state $3.2 million over its first three-and-a-half years because inmates' earlier release dates will relieve Maryland of the cost of caring for them. The program will serve 250 prisoners in those first few years.

Murderers, rapists and child abusers will not be eligible for the program.

Morris said the average yearly cost of incarceration in the state is $25,000 per inmate. She said not all of that cost will be erased because the state still has overhead expenses, such as maintaining prison buildings.

But if the program works and starts making a dent in the number of people incarcerated in Maryland, the state could "close down a whole wing" in the prison, Morris said.

The state may see additional financial benefits if the drug treatment decreases the re-offense rate, she said.

Tomi Hiers, assistant secretary and chief of staff at Public Safety and Correctional Services, said the program will let her department expand its anti-drug abuse efforts beyond the prison walls, something it could not afford to do on its own.

"We all know that programs and services and any intervention will only be as effective as the follow-up they get in the community," Hiers said.

After hearing a description of the program, a University of Maryland professor who studies addiction said it sounds like a solid plan.

"We know that people who have been in prison are likely to have substantial substance abuse problems, and the research has shown that programs that begin in prison and then continue after release in the community have the highest success rates," said Eric Wish, director of the university's Center for Substance Abuse Research.

Wish is not involved in the program.

He said ex-offenders who are on parole and receiving treatment should be given urine tests to make sure they are clean. Programs that couple testing with sanctions, such as a few days in jail, for those who fail are proving effective, he said.