To the editor:
“Lock them up and really make it hurt” is the basic failed behavior modification theory of our on-going “get tough on crime’ policy.
Laws assume everyone acts rationally, yet in the real messy world logical thinking has little if anything to do with why many act as they do.
For 37 years I was a counselor who worked with mind and mood- altering behavior problems like substance abuse and mental illness. If I asked a client with string of three OWls “Just before you got behind the wheel what were you thinking about?”, an honest person would say “Thinking had nothing to do with it. I was drunk.”
Likewise, an estranged husband who had recently assaulted his wife and kids would speak of his blind rage. While all people need to be held accountable, such folks with behavior problems need treatment for their underlying health problems. To only punish them will only fail because when society channels its frustration and anger thusly, we all suffer greatly.
Like enlightened law enforcement people say “We can’t arrest ourselves out of these problems”. Rather we need to expand drug and mental health courts that use “tough love” and a “hammer-hug approach” to intervening and solving complex problems.
So the judge drops the hammer by saying “You’re guilty, thus it’s a month in jail”, but then the hug is offered with “However, if you successfully complete the treatment program, all charges will be dropped”.
Treatment is certainly no easy cake walk, for it forces people to face, accept and adapt to their very painful reality. Even with various serious crimes that require jail, treatment should be part of doing time so recidivism will be reduced.
Policy makers need to really listen to people in recovery and the many professionals who live in the very troubled trenches of our society.
Treatment beds are far less costly…and far more effective.., then jail cells, no matter how the math is done. Thus our current “get tough on crime” is dumb.
Mike Beebe
Lyndeborough