Bigger Than Incarceration: Mass Criminalization, Mental Health & Drug War

Above Photo: Communities rise up against mass incarceration on 40th anniversary of Nixon’s declaration of the war on drugs in San Francisco. By Bill Hackwell.

During a town hall organized by the Drug Policy Alliance, Davis discussed how structural violence and the dehumanization of black and brown people are deeply embedded within the fabric of society.

As previously reported by The Root, black inmates who identify as transgender women are sexually assaulted at alarming rates, with approximately 32 percent being raped in jail after being placed in male populations.

Additionally, male and female inmates with disabilities and/or psychological issues are also more likely to be sexually violated.

According to a 2014 Vera Institute report, “On Life Support: Public Health in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” the prevalence of serious mental illness is two to four times higher in state prisons than in the general public. And two-thirds of inmates have a substance-abuse problem, compared with approximately 9 percent of the general public.

These troubling statistics go hand in hand with the anxiety, depression, substance abuse and poverty too often experienced by fractured families coping with the absence of loved ones, children, mothers and fathers, who have been targeted through overpolicing, mass incarceration and mass criminalization.

So how do we build a stronger bridge between health care advocates, including mental health, and activists fighting the war on drugs?

I asked Davis this question during the Q&A portion of the conversation. This was her response:

People are frequently incarcerated not only because they have mental or emotional difficulties, but the experience of imprisonment itself … especially solitary confinement … produces mental illness. I completely agree with your comment regarding the need for stronger bridges between the health care system and struggles against imprisonment. It might be interesting to look at the history of mental asylums and the relatively recent effort to abolish psychiatric institutionalization. And this was an important victory. However, what did not occur with the closing of the huge mental facilities was the creation of a new set of institutions that would respond to the needs of people who have mental or emotional challenges, and we’re living with the consequences of that now. … When we talk about the possibility of closing down prisons, we cannot simply close down prisons, but we have to create the kind of institutions that will allow people to change and to heal and to develop.

Listen below to the entire conversation with Angela Davis: