To the editor:
“I’m getting out of this hell-hole on Friday and my buddy said he’ll have the cold keg waiting,” the 23-year-old man announces to his fellow inmates at Valley Street Jail in Manchester. Six months ago he was sent here for a serious drunken assault, and now he’s already planning his next drunk.
For the average person this type of story makes no sense, because they don’t understand chronic health problems like substance abuse and/or mental health disorders. Giving a person a painful six-month “time out” in jail would smarten them up – that is what logical people conclude. And if they don’t get it, then the punishment must be increased. A few people in jail do make positive changes, but most don’t.
This faulty philosophy is what has driven the criminal justice system to its current sad state of affairs.
More than 85 percent of the folks in jails and prisons are alcohol/drug abusers and/or mentally ill, and most of these people get little or no treatment while locked up. Although the primary problems are health issues, the focus is on legal matters from the moment a 911 emergency call is made right through the whole traditional legal justice system. When people are impaired by substance and/or mood disorders, they often break laws. Although politicians talk about others being soft on crime, they are clueless about what jail is really like. Jails are dangerous, highly stressful and very degrading. They are often awash with drugs, gangs and a “crime school” for sharing negative lifestyles. The Department of Punishment is a more realistic name.
When people’s core issues are not addressed, the problems fester and then people get into more trouble. Repeat customers become “frequent flyers” in this dysfunctional system. Everyone involved, including the troubled person and his/her family, gets very frustrated, angry, discouraged and depressed. And the troubled person gets sicker, and is typically punished more.
Today in America we have one of the world’s largest prison populations per capita. Minorities, especially African Americans, flood our prison systems, a current form of enslavement.
A jail cell is the most expensive housing unit on Earth, in more ways than one. With the recent recession, the budget crunch is extreme in the prison system.
There are a few glimmers of hope with mental health and drug courts that assess and divert newcomers to treatment. Contrary to some people’s beliefs, treatment is far tougher to deal with than just sitting in a jail cell.
Treatment works if the treatment resources are available. This is a huge challenge in the Granite State. Of course about 20 percent of prisoners are dangerous people who need to get locked up, but most folks would benefit greatly from getting help.
Mike Beebe
Lyndeborough