In The News
|  See photos from the 2012 Mental Health in Corrections Conference.
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Last week, I wrote about how our approach to criminal
justice is based on socially collective responses to crime. I also noted that,
for the criminal offender, the brain functions the way it is programmed. We are
and do what our brains compel us to do. In the instance of criminal offending, the
brain’s neural networks activate behaviors that are not adequately inhibited by
other neural networks. | |
| | In previous contributions, I’ve proposed that our reactive responses to
criminal behavior evolved from our survival-oriented neural networks,
particularly those related to fear, anxiety, and anger. These responses
eventually coalesced into practices best characterized as tribalistic. As members of the "law abiding tribe,” we are very interested in
catching those who threaten us and the integrity of the tribe. We want
to be safe from them and minimize future threats by predicting who may
continue to pose repeated threat risks, doing what we can to reduce
those threats by various modes of containment ("rush to incarcerate”),
punishment (longer sentences, truth in sentencing, ‘Three Strikes,” etc.
) and rehabilitation (e.g., education, drug treatment, mood management
programs). However, as many critics have noted, despite our best efforts
we are not faring very well. | |
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A father told me his daughter came to see him in prison and asked
him, "Daddy, would you die for me?” He
said, "Yes, of course I would.” She then looked him straight in the eye and
asked, "Then why won't you live for me?”
When I was in prison, I remember getting upset when the yard
wasn't open on time, when chow was going to be late because the count was
wrong, and when I didn’t get to go to commissary on time. Any of those events meant that all evening
activities would be pushed back and I would not get what I wanted when I wanted
it. I, at one time, really believed I
was entitled to live with my wife and my children. | |
| | As I began to work on my theoretical treatment paradigm for
working with incarcerated individuals, one factor that became prominent was the
"death and rebirth” process associated with the incarceration experience.
Specifically, I noticed that, in order to be successful when entering the prison
system, many had to undergo a metamorphosis - shedding many aspects of the "old
self” and becoming a new "incarcerated self.” Woe to the person that was unable
to do this successfully, letting "the time do them, rather than they doing the
time.” | |
| Every living organism is neurologically programmed, each in
its own way, to survive. As I mentioned previously, there also is survival
strength in numbers; "birds of a feather flock together.” Anyone following the current political debates
and policy disagreements will recognize the efforts by individuals to not only
protect their own political tribes from assaults by members of other political
tribes, but also make their own tribes bigger by denigrating the ideologies of
members of other political tribes – and by making dire predictions of what will
likely happen if members of those other tribes are elected into offices of
government power. Most of these appeals are fear-based, designed to trigger our
anxiety arousal networks. In the end, our neural networks will prompt us to
vote for those individuals whose stated ideologies and promised policies help
us "feel” safer, less anxious and more secure, often at the deliberate expense
of objective information to the contrary.
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| | In my opinion, the correctional/forensic mental health professional can address an important quandary and assist individuals in breaking free from their personal prisons. The prisons are their own conceptions of karma. Here, in my opinion, they have a belief that their karma has restricted their freedom and, hence, their destinies. Yet, I often wonder, is this the case? | |
| | As we sat in the hospital room waiting to see if there would be any
signs of permanent damage, I reflected on all the obstacles we have
faced as a family.Hands-down the greatest obstacle we have had to
overcome was Ron’s 15-year incarceration for a crime he did not commit.
When the determination of "guilty” came from the jury, our lives were
forever changed.It wasn’t really the physical separation that was the
most difficult; it was the judgments cast upon all of us that created
the greatest obstacles.My children went from being in an intact family
to suddenly becoming not only socially fatherless, but also labeled as
"undesirable” in society. | |
| | Former prisoners relapsing into crime
and returning to incarceration are a monumental problem in the United States,
and it’s getting worse. The prevalence
of imprisonment in the United States has more than doubled over the last 30
years, up from 1.3% in 1974 to 2.7% in 2003, as reported by the Bureau of
Justice Statistics. During 2003, 18,042 individuals were committed to
Missouri’s prison system while 17,545 were released. | |
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In my previous contribution, I wondered if our "tough on crime”
criminal justice policies had created a tiger that we now have by the
tail to keep it from eating us. I believe we have.
Over
my 37 years of working in corrections, I eventually wondered what kept
fueling America’s evolving, costly, and often ineffectual "tough on
crime” ideology, while ignoring "smart on crime” strategies supported by
data and competent research. Eventually, three fundamental ideas
emerged. | |
| | As a forensic mental health professional, I have been
fortunate to work with individuals that have encountered the legal system from
many points along the continuum, ranging from initial arrest to probation. One
area that continues to interest me is re-entry. Currently, as the State and
Federal correctional systems experience fiscal pressure, and as more
incarcerated individuals are being released to economically depressed
communities, there are ongoing concerns that gaining employment may be an even greater
problem than in past years. | |
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Who would our children be if we had been the fathers we should have been?
I recently came across a photograph of my oldest son at the age of
six. I had been incarcerated for two years when the picture was taken.
Looking into the picture of him – seeing him sitting on a porch ledge
with his hair all slicked back, his head held high, dressed in his
Sunday best with a bright smile – I suddenly felt the pain he must have
lived through. I imagined the emptiness of coming to see his father
behind the gates, as the weeks turned into months and the months into
years. I realized that it was my actions that robbed him of his innocent
joy and replaced it with anger, hurt and bitterness. | |
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