Abolish Prisons
This one isn’t directly related to cannabis, but it was inspired by The New Jim Crow. The overwhelming majority of prison inmates are nonviolent offenders with mental health issues who do not receive the help that is necessary for them to reform their behaviors and/or actions. Prison does not aid in their rehabilitation and almost certainly guarantees that they will return upon release because their records prevent them from finding work, the lack of rehab and easy access to drugs in prison facilitates their addictions, and the lack of therapy exacerbates mental health issues. The prison system needs to either be seriously reformed or abolished in general in order to end discriminatory treatment that nonviolent drug uses are subjected to for years.
I’m taking Prisoner’s Rights with Professor Mushlin this semester and through guest speakers and reading cases, I have heard some pretty horrific things about prison conditions. This week, we had Tyrell Muhammad join our class. He spent 27 years in prison for a robbery he committed at nineteen, with seven of those years spent in solitary confinement. He told us that on average, five of six people in solitary confinement are there for nonviolent offenses, and mostly for “contraband” offenses, like having an extra blanket or being late to roll call. The vast majority of those people also have mental health problems that led to them even being arrested in the first place. Prison (generally) is not a place where people kick addictions and better themselves so they can get good jobs that will keep them out of prison. People in prison are subjected to physical and psychological torture that most of us cannot even comprehend. Muhammad mentioned that one night the prison guards went outside during an upstate New York winter and sprayed water into the cells through the windows just for fun; many of the prisoners contracted hypothermia because the guards were bored.
Alexander writes about the mandatory sentencing laws that cities enforce which end up disproportionately affecting minorities, drug offenders, and people who commit violent crimes. She gives a hypothetical example of a man who, at eighteen, was arrested for two counts of selling drugs to friends so he could chip in financially at home. In accepting a plea bargain, he pleads guilty and receives a felony on his record. As an adult, he cannot find work, and resorts to stealing to support his family, which is the third strike that lands him in prison. Another example describes a woman who cannot afford treatment for her drug addiction so she too resorts to robbery, giving her two strikes. She is arrested again after he third strike, also related to her drug habit. People like this do not need prison time because it won’t help them in any respect. Inmates are able to smuggle drugs into prison, and prisons generally don’t offer any rehab programs to troubled inmates. Many are forced into withdrawal upon arrival with almost no medical attention and end up performing sexual acts or bribe other inmates or guards in order to get drugs. Nonviolent drug offenders do not deserve to be in prison and do not benefit from it whatsoever, in fact it does more harm than good. Serving prison time inhibits rehabilitation, aggravates any existing mental health issues, and does not prepare inmates for life outside prison walls upon release.
One of my friends asked Tyrell Muhammad a question regarding the mental health treatment inmates receive after they are released from solitary, and he laughed at the idea that she thought they would receive any. He said, “What treatment? Guys leave solitary after 30 years with nobody to talk to afterwards.” Again, this speaks to the fact that prisons are not equipped to handle the type of people that reside there.
The problems that many inmates have, however, do not develop immediately before they are arrested. Homelessness and drug reliance are often the products of perpetual racism and the underprivileged lives that minorities lead. Many are not afforded the same opportunities to get a good education which leads to a good job that allows them to support their families. When people cannot support themselves financially, they might be forced into homelessness or a life of crime. The system we have in place today does not exist to help those in need of help but chooses to punish those who are less privileged. Drug offenders do not deserve prison, and the prison system should be reformed and/or abolished in order to treat those incarcerated like humans.
