Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Musings: Trapped in the Ice

The skies were cloudy and the north wind was gusting, delivering sharp needles of rain, when Koko and I went walking — quickly, to build heat — this gray morning.

“It’s cold,” I reported to my neighbor Andy, who agreed, but then when on to tell me he’d been communicating via email with someone in Nova Scotia, where it was truly cold — an unfathomable minus 26 degrees.

At least the winter ice melts in the spring. The other kind of “ice” is present all year-round, dominating the lives of way too many people, including that whole miserable group of unfortunate souls involved in the life of two-year-old Cyrus Bell, whose chilling death is now the focus of a highly publicized murder trial in Honolulu.

Locally, it was an overriding factor in the tragic life of Ashlee Pasion Rita, the 27-year-old pregnant mother of three recently sentenced to 10 years in prison following a long string of arrests and convictions related to her crystal meth habit and the need for money to support it.

At the end of an editorial in The Garden Island that addressed the “systemic failure” evident in Rita’s case and called upon the mayor to fulfill a campaign promise to build an adolescent drug treatment facility on island, a reader commented:

Sad story but this woman is the failure- stop blaming the system it works fine for 95% of us that live here. The blame needs to be put on her family. Where were they all these years?

That comment, which was both true and false, for me raised the question, so then what do you do with Rita and all the other “failures” who are addicted to drugs? Keep cycling them through the criminal "justice" system, where it costs $88,000 per year to incarcerate them, and who knows how much to bring them to trial and keep their kids in foster care?

Meanwhile, as the editorial reported, addicts continue to impact our community, and even when they’ve done their time, they’re not necessarily ready to join society:

The Kaua‘i Community Response Drug Plan 2008-2013 states that 80 to 90 percent of all crimes committed on Kaua‘i are drug-related, and that more than 1,500 individuals on probation, parole, drug court or awaiting sentencing “need help to re-integrate into the community, but there are gaps in the continuum of care needed.”

It seems, when you look at those kinds of statistics, and the cases of Ashlee Rita and Cyrus Bell, that the law enforcement model we’ve relied upon isn’t working when it comes to reducing addiction and its associated costs and ills. Yet locally, we’re still stuck in that mode, and so are the feds, as Democracy Now! reports:

The Obama administration’s budget proposal for the Office of National Drug Control Policy sets aside nearly twice the amount of funding for law enforcement and criminalization than for treatment and prevention of drug addiction. Out of a total of $15.5 billion dollars, some 10 billion dollars are for enforcement measures. National Drug Control Policy Gil Kerlikowske praised the numbers as reflecting a “balanced and comprehensive drug strategy.”

Well, just last year the newly-appointed drug czar and former Seattle police chief had called for an end to the so-called “war on drugs," raising hopes among advocates of harm-reduction approaches to curbing drug use. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last May Kerlikowske said “People see a war as a war on them. We’re not at war with people in this country.”


It sure feels like a war, and like the “war on terror” and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we’re investing a lot of lives and money in a fight that we're bound to lose, because we're failing to address the root cause.

The Democracy Now! report served as a segue to an interview with Dr. Gabor Mate’, an author and physician who has spent the past 12 years working with drug addicts in Vancouver. As he noted:

“Without exception, these are people with extraordinarily difficult lives. The commonality is childhood abuse…..And that’s what sets up the pain biology of addiction. In other words, the addiction is related both psychologically in terms of emotional pain relief and neurobiological development through early adversity.”

When people are stressed, mistreated or abused, Dr. Mate’ said, their brains don’t develop properly, which increases their propensity for addiction.

So as he sees it, the war on drugs is effectively “punishing people for having been abused.” And since “stress drives addiction,” the war on drugs “actually entrenches addiction deeply.”

Rather than dealing with drugs and addiction from a criminal perspective, Mate’ says we need to take “a compassionate, caring approach that would allow these people to develop.”

But that shift would require us to address as well the deeper issues — the social and political policies, the economic and racial inequalities — that feed the stress and abuse. Dr. Mate’ also links stress to the rise in ADD — attention deficit disorder — which he says is not a disease or genetic disorder, but a problem of brain development.

Yet, instead of focusing on stress reduction in our society, we’ve put 3 million kids on various forms of speed and another 500,000 on anti-psychotic drugs, creating a breeding ground for another generation of addicts and future inmates.

As Dr. Mate’ noted, this approach serves some sectors of our society, and while he didn't specify which, it's pretty obvious that we're talking about the massive prison complex and pharmaceutical industry.

Meanwhile, as he observed, everyone in our society is “always seeking satisfaction from outside,” looking to quell a hunger that can never be satiated through stuff or sex or work or service or extreme sports or any of those other legal, even admired and well-rewarded, addictions:

My point is, there’s no clear distinction between the identified addict and the rest of us. There’s just a continuum on which we all may be found. They’re on it because they’re suffered a lot more than the rest of us.

And when you look at it like that, you have to wonder, what sort of society would take the stance of lock 'em up and throw away the key?

19 comments:

  1. At some point in that continuum, people become a danger to other people. Call it crime needing punishment or disease needing treatment, such people must be be kept away from "normal people" (those on the "safe" side of the continuum?)to preserve social order.

    Confine them to jail or custodial treatment facilities. See if they can become "normal" again by moving to the acceptable end of the continuum.

    If not...maintain custodial procedures. Life goes on. There are, and always will be, "normal" people and "broken" people and "unfixable" people.

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  2. "where it costs $88,000 per year to incarcerate them,"

    -- i would think that number, if accurate, must include various associated court and administrative costs


    "80 to 90 percent of all crimes committed on Kaua‘i are drug-relate"

    -- no way. plenty of the assault / battery cases and car break-ins have nothing to do w/ drugs (i assume there just being THC in their system does not make it a "drug case")


    kauai does need an on-island drug treatment place though, for sure. you know, if you ask the local prison guards about it, a number of them will note (1) having some family around does help the druggie, and (2) the cost to visit the druggie on an off-island facility is prohibitive


    dwps

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  3. "plenty of the assault / battery cases and car break-ins have nothing to do w/ drugs "

    why do you think they're ripping off cars? to get $ for drugs. duh

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  4. "why do you think they're ripping off cars? to get $ for drugs. duh"

    -- i follow what you are saying. thing was, down in kipu for example, some cops had noted that a good number of the break ins are just kids (jr high, 16 yrs old, etc), and that the frequency jived mostly with school being out (summer). plus, its what ive noticed there too. anyways, yes its just one place. but same with larceny - its aint all for drug money, not by a long shot. but i defer to whatever the data or record shows

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  5. i hear there's drug treatment center going up on the northshore; private beach, spa amenities and a butler if you need one. probably out of the price range for the local user but hey, if your PO says go and your insurance will pay, why not seek treatment in a beautiful setting.

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  6. Joan, your comprehension of the situation is above the average professionalʻs.
    You are a great writer.
    As to the many losers that comment here, all I can say is itʻs amazing theyʻve lived to such ripe old ages being so self absorbed and simple.

    I believe, the most difficult and telling time period in a human beingʻs life is the teenage years, and even moreso if compounded by childhood abuse.
    That being said, there is a small window for intervention, providing the need is even noticed.
    But in all kids those are some terrible years and Iʻd guess that the hormonal surges are something that is unknowningly targeted by the self medicating through drug and alcohol abuse.
    Something happening to their bodies and minds, overnight and quickly...itʻs like a natural acid trip.
    And in this fʻkd up society that people like your commenters have created.....whoooaaaa - NO WONDER.
    When I was a kid I liked to shoplift. It was ʻnormalʻ behavior.
    It came with the territory.
    But in reality, itʻs older wealthy people that shoplift, donʻt hear much about it because theyʻve got the funds to dispose of (not the crime) the little ʻeccentricityʻ.
    Breaking into cars: itʻs a number of reasons; anger, boredom, furloughs, no other outlets, etc.

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  7. Thanks, Jack. I'm glad you enjoy my blog.

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  8. Why not PREVENT the drugs from getting in, in the first place? Last time I checked Kauai was a remote island sharing no physical border...

    And as far as "on island" drug labs - how can they hide on this small island ? [oh wait, authorities don't tattle on their own family memebers...].

    YES the problem has a crux in FAMILIES. Both drug use and manufacture.

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  9. "what sort of society would take the stance of lock 'em up and throw away the key?"

    Let me guess. A society that privatizes prisons so profit making corporations can make a buck and them media corporations scare everyone about crime, and then corporate lobbyist buy politicians to get tough on crime and they criminalize everything and then the corporations use prison industries to compete with "legit" businesspeople under the guise of giving felons a "employable skills" but the the only place they now use those skills is in prison industries so they have to commit a crime to get their old jobs back!

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  10. Let me guess. A society that privatizes prisons so profit making corporations can make a buck and them media corporations scare everyone about crime, and then corporate lobbyist buy politicians to get tough on crime and they criminalize everything and then the corporations use prison industries to compete with "legit" businesspeople under the guise of giving felons a "employable skills" but the the only place they now use those skills is in prison industries so they have to commit a crime to get their old jobs back!

    That sums it up well.

    Except for one key point: the batteries that run the whole engine.

    And that's the tens of millions of voters who, out of ignorance and fear, support the politicians who pander to them with the "I'm tough on crime" card.

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  11. You want to be soft on crime??

    Crime will always be with us in all its various forms.

    People ill-suited for life in "polite society" will likewise always be with us.

    I do not want to be soft on crime. Change them into non-criminals if you can...if you can't...lock 'em up and throw away the key.

    Actually, my alt solution for the "can't be fixed" crowd is to kill them. A lot cheaper in the long run. A new "three strikes" law.

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  12. "lock 'em up and throw away the key."

    -- its friggin expensive tho, and they eventually tend to get out (and are stronger, and meaner, and next to you in the DMV line). ounce of prevention..

    as to killin them, this aint china, singapore, or saudi arabia et al

    just sayin


    dwps

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  13. OK...if "eliminating the problem that otherwise won't go away" is too strong on your stomach, how about this...

    For those that won't/can't change and remain a danger to society (and, no, crime can't be prevented by "an ounce of prevention"), put them all in med induced comas forever. Interveneous feeding. Stack them like cord wood providing them with minimal care services.

    Smaller facilities...vastly reduced personnel...most likely vastly reduced maintenance cost/person.

    Maybe organ farms....

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  14. Actually, my alt solution for the "can't be fixed" crowd is to kill them. A lot cheaper in the long run. A new "three strikes" law.

    It's endlessly amusing how those Americans who advocate the most belligerent action against extreme Islamic fundamentalism tend to share its extreme values of justice.

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  15. It's not justice, it's economics. Justice, and the perp's own habitual actions, condemned him/her.

    We're just trying to resolve the problem in the least-cost manner.

    I don't believe in life sentences, or really long ones, either. They get 3 hots and a cot plus free med support. And they get to meet new friends. All at taxpayer expense.

    I'd vote for "quick removal".

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  16. We're just trying to resolve the problem in the least-cost manner.

    No, you're trying to be a vigilante. History suggests that you'll find the sword cuts both ways.

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  17. Vigilantism implies acting violently against the law to punish perps.

    This would not be such. The law already condemned them to huge sentences, up to life.

    This approach, if made legal, would be, relative to "outside society", the least-cost method of keeping incorrigible felons confined (in comas or death).

    I like it. I wouldn't at all be surprised if we adopt it some day.

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  18. How very true, Dawson.

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  19. If society wants to remove the dangerous incorrigibles forever in supermax and other max prisons...

    ...then why not really remove them forever in a manner that saves money, time and effort?

    I see no problem with that. If they're gone, they're gone...doesn't matter how.

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