An America to be proud of

The United States of America may not be able to fix its broken two-party political system, or the intense polarization that it breeds among its own citizens, but there is a paradigm shift that this country is capable of achieving that would improve the quality of life for every person living in this country.

When we are able to see drug addiction as a health problem rather than a crime problem, and treat it accordingly, ever so much will change for the better.  When homelessness is viewed as wholly unacceptable in all circumstances, because we decide to care about our own safety and well-being as much as we care about having a competent military, and we start actually doing something about it on a national and systemic level, that will be the start of a new America that we can be proud to live in…

…an America that protects its people and takes care of its people.

Drug Addiction

A person, for whatever reason, begins using drugs and becomes an addict.  This has consequences to their health and relationships, their job or schooling… it affects their life at every level.  It impacts the lives of those around them.  So we are talking about a person with a problem who needs help and treatment, and most of all a system of support to help them get out of it and begin the transition back to a healthier life.

Except that in America our solution is to compound their trouble by treating them like a criminal.

.

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…which has the add-on effect of increasing the burden on society by perpetuating the cycle of drug use and the overwhelming temptation to commit crime in order to support the habit.

Prison as a (truly) last resort

There are only two kinds of people who should ever be incarcerated in prison ~ as we know them today.

… and for that matter, only as long as is necessary.

1. Those who pose a credible threat to the safety of an individual or the public at large

2. Those who misbehave at or attempt to escape from a Rehabilitation Detention Center

What is meant by “Rehabilitation Detention Center?”

A low-security fully self-contained campus designed with the core principle in mind of addressing the root causes of anti-social and criminal behavior, including tending to the mental, physical, educational, emotional and vocational needs of its “residents.”

Those who live on these campuses need not be viewed as ‘outside the bubble’ of society but merely fellow members of a larger community who have special needs or happen to be struggling through difficulties in getting to a workable position within society.

Meanwhile, there are very few sorts of people who should ever end up (by court order) confined to a Rehabilitation Detention center.  Among them are those who fail to perform (to satisfaction) their assigned community service, make appropriate restitution for their wrongdoings and/or (in the case of ongoing criminal history) show discernible progress toward becoming productive members of society.

These might also form the basis for similar structural programs geared toward those struggling through homelessness and drug addiction, where slots are made available to those seeking assistance with re-integration and wishing to self-register.

The time has come to stop fixating on this notion of “Getting the Criminals off the Streets,” as if these persons were some kind of disease that needed to be eradicated.  Enlightened self-interest suggests that we focus our energies instead on,

“Getting People off Crime”

(the real disease)

How?  By allowing ourselves the dignity to believe that we have the ingenuity, innovative capacity and compassion to enable victims of crime see restitution for the wrongs against them, and criminal behavior directed toward productive behavior.

See Also: Crime, Punishment and Economics

Criminalization as panacea – Entry04

Drug addicts are, above all, people (probably not unlike you and me) who need help at a difficult time in their lives.  Pointing a finger and fixating on the label of ‘criminal’ won’t help them…

…or society at large – the rest of us.