12 Steps to Jail

(c) by Mark Dempsey

Thomas Franks’ "Too Smart to Fail" essay explains the way we delude ourselves with "expert" opinion. As one wag says: "An ex is a 'has-been' and a spurt is a drip under pressure." Anyway, Franks documents in excruciating detail the way Americans are more interested in "pretend and extend" than genuine change.

Franks says public policy is too often insane, doing the same thing repeatedly, expecting a different outcome. Making sanity, not “extend and pretend,” and not a financial advantage, a foundation for public policy is what’s desperately needed. Taking that next step to share sanity with a larger community is not trivial, either.

Twelve-step programs are one example of an institution designed to bring sanity to addicts and their families. Nevertheless, if you're familiar with these programs, you'll know that one of their traditions specifically forbids the organization from taking public policy stands. They humbly admit they're too crazy to handle the turbulence that comes from going public.

Giving up taking any public policy stand has some pretty dramatic repercussions too. These programs spend an awful lot of time educating members that addiction is not a moral failing, it’s a disease. That means addicts should be treated, not punished. But what is public policy?

Primarily because of the "drug war," the U.S. incarcerates, per-capita, five times more people than the world average. America jails seven times more than the Canadians. How effective is it? Even though U.S. and Canadian demographics are similar, crime rates between the two countries have differed insignificantly for 40 years--essentially since Reagan put the drug war on steroids.

This is a very big problem, suppresses a significant portion of the population, wastes an enormous amount of resources. Medical treatment for addiction and mental health problems is one-seventh as expensive as incarceration. The Swiss de-criminalized even heroin and found crime around its clinics declined 85%.

Worse still, incarceration continues the racism that preceded the Civil Rights era. More black men are in jail now than were enslaved in 1850. Even though whites and blacks use and sell drugs in roughly the same proportion, by a wide margin people of color are disproportionately targeted to harass, prosecute and jail. So while it's illegal to discriminate based on skin color now, once someone has a felony record, discrimination is perfectly legal in housing and employment. Some states disenfranchise felons, eliminating their rights to privacy, forbidding them from using public housing. See Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness for details.

So can we persuade the public to set aside their animosity toward felons, and their racism toward people of color, to make society more humane? Twelve steppers are silent, by design, about this.

My sister suggests I’m missing the point. Twelve-step programs are practically Buddhist in their detachment (and in fact promote “detaching”), and are not suitable places for social action, she says. Besides, their precepts forbid them from endorsing public policy measures.

But don’t these people use the infrastructure and human capital our public policies maintain and support? Are we to believe that the formerly robust public participation of the American public is to devolve into a bunch of powerless drones hypnotized by TV screens?

Boy, I hope not.

Suggested Flyer for 12-steppers:

Let’s Stop Punishing Addicts, Really

Twelve-step meetings educate attendees that addiction is an illness, not a moral failing. The Open Letter from the Alcoholic often read in such meetings says “Don't lecture, blame or scold me. You wouldn't be angry with me for having cancer or diabetes. Alcoholism is a disease, too.”

Yet punishing rather than healing addicts is what official U.S. public policy does now. Currently, U.S. prisons are full to overflowing with people arrested in the drug war. The U.S. is tops in the world in incarceration at 756 per 100,000 population. The world average is 150 per 100,000.

Canada imprisons 111 per 100,000. Its demographics are similar to the U.S., and its crime and U.S. crime have differed only insignificantly for more than 40 years.

Furthermore, treating addiction rather than punishing it is more effective and cheaper. It costs one-seventh as much to treat as to incarcerate. Imagine jailing diabetics...or burning witches. About the same thing, really.

Worst of all, even though the evidence is that all races consume drugs in equal proportions, people of color suffer disproportionately in the drug war. They are many times more likely to be harassed, arrested and jailed than whites. It may be illegal to discriminate because of skin color, but it is not illegal to discriminate against felons. They often cannot even vote, nor use public housing.

Action Items:

1. Let your state, local and federal representatives know you disapprove of this policy of incarceration.

2. Work to repeal three strikes and determinate sentencing laws. (fcnl.org is one organization doing this)

3. Let your 12-step program’s reps know that ordinarily taking stands on public policy is not this organization’s role, but this case is an exception.