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Good morning to everyone except agents of the carceral state
{A gloomy thread}
{A gloomy thread}
I have been supporting a young woman who I met in prison. She is struggling with a drug addiction. An addiction she has pleaded for help with many times. But the state response has, time and time again, been to lock her up.
Over the weekend she had a very small relapse (the 1st in a very long time). She contacted me and told me how proud of herself she was for pulling up and desisting. I was so proud of her. It was a huge leap forward in her healing journey.
She told her mum, and her mum suggested they approach her parole officer for help, maybe she’d finally get that space in rehab they’d been pleading for.
{Sadly, many non criminalised people still think these positions exist to support us}
{Sadly, many non criminalised people still think these positions exist to support us}
And what was the state response? ....not love, support, care or health care, but hand cuffs. No less than 15 hours later, the police arrived to take her back to jail and it has left us all devastated.
They have ripped a young woman away from a loving family, from a friend who loves her dearly, and a life she was working so damned hard to carve out for herself.
Why on earth do we expect that people will be able to go cold turkey with an active addiction? It’s brutal and cruel...and yet, they call us the savages!
{Pfft fuck the state. And fuck everyone who thinks it’s ok to lock someone up for being unwell}
{Pfft fuck the state. And fuck everyone who thinks it’s ok to lock someone up for being unwell}
Substance use is absolutely a matter of public health, not of criminal 'justice'. We need to work hard to shift this paradigm so that the needs of the patient are centred and wrap around health orientated supports are readily available.
We could reverse the incarceration boom if we just abandoned criminal 'justice' policies that result in the criminalisation of whole communities. But this paradigmatic shift from criminalisation to health will not occur unless the whole community understand...
and accept that what we are doing now, is an act of violence - state sanctioned violence.
There are alternatives to the current criminal 'justice' response to substance use...and we need to imagine them, because the enforcement of current policies is what has fundamentally
There are alternatives to the current criminal 'justice' response to substance use...and we need to imagine them, because the enforcement of current policies is what has fundamentally
undermined community health and safety.
Addressing addiction as a health condition has the very real potential to improve health outcomes and overall well being for tens of thousands of people.
tell me...why would we not do this?
Addressing addiction as a health condition has the very real potential to improve health outcomes and overall well being for tens of thousands of people.
tell me...why would we not do this?
