Something I Said – Denying Chemical Dependency Treatment to the Incarcerated

Published May 24, 2010

Something I Said – CD Treatment for Prisoners
Dwight Hobbes – MN Spokesman-Recorder

Here’s a news flash, a lot of men and women locked up behind bars are
chemically dependent — addicts, alcoholics or both. And, guess what?
Booze and dope routinely are huge factors in folk breaking the law.
Doesn’t come as a surprise? Well, you’d think it was news the way
prisons have treated these people. Rather, failed to treat them.
You’d think it was a radical, overlooked concept instead of widespread
common knowledge.

The criminal justice and penal systems — let’s just do a reality
check — are supposed to be about more than simply catching criminals
to punish them and keep everyone else safe from them. Right? The
idea behind penitentiaries — they’re even called correctional
institutions — isn’t apprehension for the sake of warehousing. It’s
supposed to be about rehabilitation. Well, that’s the company line,
anyway. It may as well be nothing more than a rumor so far as doing
anything about inmates with substance abuse problems go.
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at
Columbia University reports that more than half — 65% of everyone
incarcerated in this country (that’s 1.5 million out of 2.3 million)
meet the American Medical Association’s criteria as suffering the
disease of addiction to drink or other substances. CASA also reports
that less than one-sixth, 11% are treated for this chronic behavioral
illness that is as debilitating as cancer and farther reaching in its
impact, destroying sufferers and, like a plauge of contagion, wreaking
hell on those with whom sufferers comes in contact — from friends and
family to crime victims to tax-payers funding federal pens.
How about some statics? Everybody loves stats, as if they are
necessary to validate common sense. In 2006 alone, according to
CASA, alcohol, meth, crack, etcetera were involved in offenses: 78% of
violent crimes; 83% of property crimes; and 77% of those involving
weapons those that were probation or parole violations. You can make
the knee-jerk judgement, Tough. Too bad. If they’re dumb enough to
commit illegal and self-destructive acts under the influence or in
relation to substances, it’s their hard cheese. They should’ve just
said, “No.” If you don’t realize how much easier that’s said than
done, put his down and go read something else. Something like Only
Bad And Stupid People Do Bad And Stupid Things.

A glaring truth is that, while chemical dependency treatment
doesn’t guarantee recovery from the disease, it does work. Vastly
effective has been the self-help organization Alcoholics Anonymous,
part and parcel of countless successful treatment regimine on record.
Sorry, you’re not going to find stats to back that up, because AA
doesn’t keep tabs on its members. If you can tell your elbow from a
hot rock, though, you know that nothing stays around more than a
half-century without having earned its keep. AA would not have lasted
this long, much less continued to grow, spawning such successful
offshoots as Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous and more if it
didn’t work. You don’t need a spreadsheet to figure that out.
The plain and simple fact is that, by and large, bigshots who run
prisons don’t give a damn about treating chemical dependency among
inmates. Junkies and drunks aren’t returning to these well-to-do
folk’s communities with a harder time than ever of finding legal
employment, subject to the people-places-and-things pressure to pick
up right where they left off at, breaking the law by getting high,
breaking the law to get their hands on some get-high and being stones
around the necks of their families, friends and neighbors, not to
mention their own worst enemies.

In fact, people running these places parasitically reap a benefit
from the relapse of alchies and dope fiends who get cycled through the
revolving door of recidivism. Each warm body that gets released, hits
the bricks, doesn’t keep his or her nose clean and gets locked up
again isn’t a human being to them, but the means to keep prison
personnel employed.

God knows, criminals don’t deserve inordinate consideration. When
they’re sick, though, it is only humane to afford such treatment as
can doing something about their disease. For their sake and,
importantly, for the sake of those in society they will be around once
they are freed. To ignore this, to overlook it, to just turn a blind
eye and deaf ear is, itself, yes, a crime. Against inmates and
against the public.

Coming: “Angels Don’t Really Fly” EP by Dwight Hobbes & The All-Star Hired Guns featuring Alicia Wiley. The crew: Me, Alicia Wiley, Stanley Kipper, Chico Perez, Jeff “Boday” Christensen, Aaron “Orange A.C.” Cosgrove and Yohannes Tona. Singer-songwriter Dwight Hobbes recorded the single “Atlanta Children” (BeatBad Records) and gigged 10 years in the Long Island/NYC area, including The Other End, Kenny’s Castaways and My Fathers Place. Fronted the Boston blues band Midlight. In Minneapolis, Hobbes opened for David Daniels at First Street Entry, James Curry at Terminal Bar, sat in with Yohannes Tona, Alicia Wiley at Sol Testimony’s Soul Jam, The New Congress at Babalu, Willie Murphy at the Viking Bar and Wain McFarlane & Jahz at Lucille’s Kitchen. Dwight Hobbes still drops in at the occasional open mic around town. Dwight Hobbes has written for ESSENCE, Reader’s Digest, Washington Post, Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, City Pages, Mpls/St. Paul, MN Law & Politics, Pulse of the Twin Cities, Twin Cities Daily Planet, Women & Word, San Diego Union-Tribune, The Circle, to Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder (where he contributes the commentary columns Hobbes In The House and Something I Said. He’s spoken his mind over National Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio and KMOJ in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Was regularly featured as guest commentator on NewsNight Minnesota (KTCA-Minneapolis/St. Paul) and Spectator (Minneapolis Television Network). His monthly column “Hobbes In The House” in MN Spokesman Recorder comments on domestic abuse and rape. His plays are Shelter – produced at Mixed Blood Theatre by Pangea World Theater, Dues – produced by Mixed Blood Theatre, University of Southern Illinois in Point of Revue, selected for Bedlam Theatre’s 10-Minute Play Festival and published by Playscripts, Inc. You Can’t Always Sometimes Never Tell – produced by Theater Center Philadelphia, Long Island University, reading at The Kennedy Center and published in the anthology CENTER STAGE, In the Midst – produced by Long Island University, starring Samuel E. Wright. Hobbes spoke on the panel “Farewell To August Wilson” at the Guthrie Theater, broadcast on Conversations With Al McFarlane (KFAI, KMOJ). Twin Cities Daily Planet articles archived at www.tcdailyplanet.net/dwighthobbes

Something I Said – Denying Chemical Dependency Treatment to the Incarcerated

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