Our prisons are drugging women

[davidn3600]

.....

Having followed a group of 20 women post-incarceration for the past five years, I have become increasingly concerned with the use of medical procedures and treatments to “manage” the problems caused by social and economic policies and by overuse of incarceration.

I first met Elizabeth, a white woman in her early 40s, as a participant in a study I was conducting among women who have been incarcerated in Massachusetts. A decade or so earlier she had the misfortune of losing the sister with whom she had been especially close throughout her life. Devastated by the death of her sister, she struggled to keep up the smiling expression demanded in her job as a waitress. Told by her boss that her teary demeanor made the customers uncomfortable, she was let go. Without a job she was unable to keep up with her rent, and at the age of 32 she became homeless. Without a secure place to live, Elizabeth became a target for repeated robberies and sexual assaults.

Like many other homeless people, she was arrested for loitering, drinking in a public park and resisting arrest when a policeman she had called to protect her from assault decided to arrest her instead. In prison she was put on Thorazine and Lithium, medications that typically are used for psychosis (she has never been diagnosed as psychotic). Elizabeth explained, “This (the drugs they gave me) made me gain weight and made me into a (space cadet). It’s not the right medicine. I’m not crazy, that’s for crazy people. I have PTSD and depression from being raped.” In a fog from the medication, Elizabeth lost privileges such as use of the prison canteen and was repeatedly confined to her cell for failing to cooperate with the orders of correctional officers. She was lucky; her cell mate spent two weeks in solitary confinement.

America’s astronomical rates of incarceration (the highest in the world) and America’s equally astronomical rates of psychotropic drug use (also the highest in the world) are two sides of the same coin. Both medicalization (the tendency to characterize social problems or conditions in medical terms and adopting a medical approach to address those problems) and criminalization construe social problems as the moral failings of individuals. This formulation draws attention away from the social miseries that lead to pain, disability, illness and the need to do whatever it takes to survive. When Elizabeth needed job security and affordable housing, what she received was a prison sentence and a cocktail of psychotropic medication.

Full article...
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/08/are_americas_prisons_drugging_women/

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. The Snake Pit 2.0

Just fucking shameful and nobody here gives a shit.
& R

[davidn3600]

2. Our society has the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" mentality

Prisoners are hated in our society. So they are very easily exploited. And our justice system has become an industry and becoming increasingly privatized. People are making money off this.

And trying to change the status quo is difficult for those two reasons. The system is designed not to rehabilitate, but to punish. The public in general does not care about inmate abuse. Look at how people joke about prison rape. There are people out there that think sexual abuse should be part of the punishment.

And once you get caught up in this system it's nearly impossible to break free. Even when people serve their time, they are still punished by society. Many schools won't let ex-felons attend. Employers won't hire people convicted of a crime. In fact, I've seen some say they won't even hire someone who had a misdemeanor even if it was a decade ago. Housing is difficult to obtain because landlords do background checks now. And then we blame the person when they end up back in prison.

[RedCappedBandit]

3. And that's just how the sick pigs profiting from this industry want it to remain. nt

[xmas74]

4. I give a shit

The problem is that it's so overwhelming I don't even know where to begin.

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. Thank you. I think that many of the few of us that do feel much the same.

There's no interest in even acknowledging that a problem exists in any strata that could actually do something.

We no longer even maintain a pretense of rehabilitation and the phrase "paying your debt to society" is just another cruel joke.

[xmas74]

11. We complain about the criminal

yet, when released, we still don't give them a chance. The conviction follows them around for the rest of their lives. It keeps them away from education, from decent jobs, from decent housing.

Personally, IMO, unless convicted of a violent crime, a conviction should be expunged upon completion of the sentence. I don't need to know about someone's bad checks, about their drug conviction, about a misdemeanor conviction. I do need to know about abuse, about rape, about weapons charges, etc.

How can anyone be expected to change if society doesn't allow them to move on?

[LittleGirl]

8. +1 eom

[sorefeet]

10. Campaign Finance Reform

Our spineless elected officials would rather take a bribe from the Industrial Prison Complex than work for the people who pay their wages, health insurance and pension.

[LisaLynne]

5. And it's just win-win for our corporate overlords, huh?

More money funneled to the drug companies.

[Alameda]

6. ...and more workers for the prison projects....and

more guinea pigs for testing drugs on.

[Comrade Grumpy]

9. "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons"--Fyodor Dostoyevsky