Deinstitutionalization? Think Again!

A young, homeless, disabled man is hungry. He goes in to a store and takes a small pack of candy. He is confronted by the store employees. Frightened, he pulls out a weapon he keeps on his person for protection.

Another young, homeless man with a disability is hungry. He goes into a store and helps himself to a snack and a drink. When confronted by the store employee, pulls out a child’s toy weapon and backs out of the store.

I admit that if I were in the place of those store employees I would have been frightened, too.

I suppose I would have called the police. If I were an officer responding in either of these scenarios, I suppose I would have made the arrests.

But at what point during our judicial process do we stop and look at these young men and see them as frightened, confused individuals that have disabilities and need our care and compassion?

Where are these young men now? A place where they have a roof over their heads and three meals a day. They are provided with food, medical care, clothing, water, and some basic necessities such as toothpaste and soap.

I wonder if the judge put them in prison because there is no other facility where their needs could be met.

Do you think mentally ill people should be locked up against their will? No? Then why is there no public outcry when they are locked up in prison?

And what of combat veterans with traumatic brain injuries and post traumatic stress syndrome? Should they be imprisoned? Many of them are.

And then there are those disgusting drug addicts. It’s their own fault, right? It’s their choice. They deserve to be locked up, right? Except that most of them only do about a year and few of them get any treatment for their addiction. And I have yet to hear a five year old say, “When I grow up, I want to be a drug addict.” There is something else going on here!

The addicts we lock up just go back to the streets in worse shape than when they went into the prison. Now they have lost jobs, homes, and relationships. If they weren’t dangerous before, there’s a good chance they are now. Still addicted, nothing much to lose, and they probably learned a few tricks of the trade from other prisoners during their time inside.

And many of these addicts are also self medicating mental illness and brain injury. We need an alternative to prison for the mentally ill, disabled, and substance addicted individuals where they can learn actual life skills such as emotion regulation, assertiveness, and other alternative behaviors to counter the addictive or impulsive behaviors.

We need rehabilitative treatment for those with true deviant behavior as well. Why should tax payers be saddled with the cost of caring for all these prisoners, most of whom will just be released back into our communities to continue their criminal acts against the very citizens who paid for their Incarceration.

And while we’re on the subject, would you be willing to see your tax dollars pay for community gardens and greenhouses so inmates can grow their own food instead of sitting around doing nothing and having their food shipped in? Besides the fact that much of the food is poor quality, lots of starchy bread and processed meat that contributes to health problems for which we taxpayers also foot the bill.

These are just some of the thoughts that roll around my head and I decided to get them out. The way we do prison is antiquated and ignores all the new research on what facilitates behavior change. We just have an extremely expensive revolving door system. It might be more expensive up front to make the necessary changes, but we would save millions in the long run if we actually rehabilitated prisoners.