Monday, January 7, 2008
Jails and Prisons - Why Drug Policy Can Not End Drug Use
Drug policy can not end drug use for the same reason that criminal justice policy can not end crime. The core of the problem, the root cause, is ignored. Some policies even create more crime than it prevents. The drug laws in this country, although designed to decrease criminal activity, actually create more of it according to many criminologists. "We should return the treatment of addicts to the medical profession" and stop relying on the criminal justice system to solve the problems of society and the individual. One of the biggest problems with the criminal justice system is that we as a society depend on the government to handle and solve problems that it was never designed to handle or solve.
"In America, crime does pay because our nation's prison system is not working". The nation's prison system is not working because we expect too much from it. According to the 1967 President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice report, the justice system is only intended to "enforce the standards of conduct necessary to protect individuals and the community".
Mathew B. Robinson, author of Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice, has thoroughly investigated what the main goals of the criminal justice system are supposed to be and so far as he can conclude, the two main goals of the criminal justice system are "doing justice" and "reducing crime". Both goals are wrought with conflicting elements, but reducing crime, although a criminal justice goal, is not a power that congress is indwelled with explicitly. This is one of the central problems with our attitude towards crime. We expect the government to engage in crime control, even though it is not designed to do so, only because since the 1960's crime control has increasingly become a national issue as a consequence of the politicization of crime in elections and the media's coverage of crime.
The criminal justice system is doing the only thing it can to prevent crime and enforce laws. It does not succeed in preventing crime because it is not designed to do so. The root causes of crime are far too complex and go far too deep for the bandage of criminal justice to cover and heal. It will take major surgery by qualified professionals to truly prevent crime and the cooperation and coalesced effort of American society to cure it.
Brendan Bickley
A.S., B.A., C.A.T.S., CADC II, Doctoral Candidate
Director of Education Morningside Recovery
"In America, crime does pay because our nation's prison system is not working". The nation's prison system is not working because we expect too much from it. According to the 1967 President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice report, the justice system is only intended to "enforce the standards of conduct necessary to protect individuals and the community".
Mathew B. Robinson, author of Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice, has thoroughly investigated what the main goals of the criminal justice system are supposed to be and so far as he can conclude, the two main goals of the criminal justice system are "doing justice" and "reducing crime". Both goals are wrought with conflicting elements, but reducing crime, although a criminal justice goal, is not a power that congress is indwelled with explicitly. This is one of the central problems with our attitude towards crime. We expect the government to engage in crime control, even though it is not designed to do so, only because since the 1960's crime control has increasingly become a national issue as a consequence of the politicization of crime in elections and the media's coverage of crime.
The criminal justice system is doing the only thing it can to prevent crime and enforce laws. It does not succeed in preventing crime because it is not designed to do so. The root causes of crime are far too complex and go far too deep for the bandage of criminal justice to cover and heal. It will take major surgery by qualified professionals to truly prevent crime and the cooperation and coalesced effort of American society to cure it.
Brendan Bickley
A.S., B.A., C.A.T.S., CADC II, Doctoral Candidate
Director of Education Morningside Recovery
Labels: incarceration
