We’re all coming together to sit at the table in order to stop the United States down the desperate and disgusting track its been headed down for decades.
Alternatives to Incarceration Exist, We Choose Who has Access
People ask me where my passion comes from for prisoners and I can simply answer in saying I talk to them. They become human in front of me in their dialogue. A few years ago a healthy public debate between prisoners and congress members in Michigan was canceled last minute after months of preparation. This was an act to inhibit dialogue because discourse is humanizing. I humanize the prisoners I serve by communicating and building relationships, especially with those that are activists. Often I sit and write prisoners back in letters, sometimes I’ll be watching a show while I’m writing and more recently I’ve been watching a documentary series called, Intervention. The show follows the lives individuals suffering from various forms of addition: alcohol, shopping, gambling, drugs. The family chooses to intervene because the addict has spiraled out of control, most having already reached a point of desperation in all areas of their lives: financially, academically, socially and some have deteriorated physically. Their closest family members in an attempt to “get their loved one back” would hold an intervention in which loved ones would sit round circle with the addict, after coercing them into the room, to convince the person to attend a 90 treatment program back to health.
I mention this show for two reasons. The first being that the show explicitly illustrates the alternatives that exist within our society, right here in the United States, instead of instituting mass incarceration on the scale that we do. Second I’d like to point out that it is very rare to see Black families represented on this program. While I do recognize that selected families are chosen for its documentary series, there are 19 Seasons with over 270 episodes. Out of those I have seen 3 episodes with Black families and only 1 was a Black male, Rocky. Rocky’s Season 7 episode 13 is a treacherous story of a once famous boxer who became addicted to crack in the 80s at the hight of his feather weight career as a two time world champion. At the time of the show he’d been incarcerated for several times over many years and lost contact with his family including his twin sons for over 15 years while living on the streets as an addict after he’d been incarcerated. His reaction during his intervention after seeing his sons again for the first time is a widely used meme on the internet, it has been used in countless parodies and comedies, but it looses its humor after knowing the story behind the origin.
Police Can Aide in Supporting Families and Encouraging Individuals to get Alternative Treatment
My argument is that our community is not often represented on this show because we are not often given an intervention, an opportunity to address the root cause of unacceptable behaviors and a chance to bring healing to the trauma that results in behaviors like addition and crime before we are swept away into the modern slave system, United States prisons, or are killed by police officers. We often are never given any chance, we are cuffed, warehoused or executed before our intervention ever comes. It is rare that the police are called to be present for an addict’s potentially negative response during the intervention and when that happened with Dillon I was shocked by officials’ constant demonstration of patience and understanding with him. I realized watching officers interact with this 20 year old white boy that Departments of corrections were completely capable of apprehending someone who is unstable, aggressive, violent; even a person with a criminal record like the Dillion who had a prior gun charge. This intervention was particularly unique in the way that the producers chose to involve the Lindsay Police Department, whose motto is literally was to, “Protect & Serve”. The Police stated that they were familiar with and had been watching Dillon. Surprisingly they continued by agreeing with the interventionist that it was better to be therapeutic rather than punitive in their response to Dillion who was currently on probation for his prior gun charge. Chief Police Officer Eric Dodson and his team of 3 joined in an effort of attempting to convince Dillion to go to Behavioral Health of the Palm Beaches in Lake Worth, FL rather than being taken to prison. I was in disbelief wondering how many 20 year old young black men are offered that type of ultimatum. The Police actually pleaded with Dillion saying, “We’ve cut you some slack. Remember the times we were here and we could’ve taken you to jail but we didn’t? We’re trying to let you help yourself. The Time has come today.” Its blatant that officers biases come into play every single day when they interact with the pubic because unlike having these types of conversations in an attempt to be offered treatment, the only bargaining chip young black men may be given is years of their lives in a guilty plea deal with an overworked public defender. That is if they even are arrested safely and not killed in their initial interaction with police. This is what happened in the innocent of Chance Gittens who was killed in Seattle by police officers. Gittens, was not addition to drugs but did have a prior unrelated gun charge. Rather than using restraint in their force, undercover officers in unmarked cars bated him out of his home at night before shooting him in his front yard in the pursuit of his friend who also was unrelated to their case. The event was a tragedy that continues to plague Gittens’ family and the Kitsap County Police Department continues to deny their responsibility for Chance’s wrongful death.
Officers and Dillion knew each other by name, “Hey Dill, It’s me Rob” an officer said after knocking and asking to come into the home. Police were so patient and courteous with Dillion’s disrespect and aggression that he was able to lock them out of his room as he escaped and ran down the street. Rather than tackling him to the grown, shooting a stun gun, using excessive force or any other type of weapon; offers chased after him on foot until he stopped. Again I am not bashing this police department, their practices with this young man proves that police are able to demonstrate these type of methods and also demonstrates executive forces’ ability to collaborate with the treatment centers that offer more effective and less punitive forms of correction for people suffering from poverty or addition. This should be protocol for everyone who is suffering from addictive and criminal behaviors that could trap them in a cycle of poverty, instability, aggression, being abused, drug use, etc.
Potential Interventionist Partnerships with Police Departments to Aide in De-Escalation and Conflict Resolution
I’ve been watching this show on and off for a couple of months and I have yet to see an intervention that was so shocking. Shocking in the way that the young man was suffering from addition, the way that he treated his family, the circumstances of his adolescent years, the way his life spiraled down from a high school success beginning with a school expulsion as a result of his bringing a gun to school and especially shocking in the way that the police handled him. The Interventionist Jeff VanVonderen even coached the police on what to say to Dillion to get him to calm him down. We have been asking for officers to incorporate de-escalation and conflict resolution methods into their interactions with the public, Should officers often be escorted by an interventionist? Should an interventionist be employed by each police department for this type of work? Should interventionists come into departments of corrections offices regularly to conduct seminars/workshops on how to approach potentially violent and aggressive people? The resources exist in our society right now in our country as we can see in this one example form Oklahoma.
The police were successful in assisting Dilion’s family in getting him to a treatment facility rather than by forcefully killing or cuffing him and forcing to spend years of his life and prison. Police do not have to operate as terrorists to our communities and this really is how they can “Protect & Serve”. They are protecting Dillion’s family in ensuring that they’re able to safely enter the home and speak with him, they protect the community by relocating him to a secure environment for treatment. They are serving him his family and the community by assisting in convincing him to make the choice to go to treatment as an alternative to their routine punishment of choice, incarceration. In doing this, they encouraged him, like a loving family member would, they told him that he was smart and wanted to see him do better. Imagine if we all had the confidence that Dillons mother had in the police to know that our officers wanted the best for even our most troublesome young black men? Sadly many black mothers, even of successful and thriving children, worry in fear of a police encounter with their child.
Individualized Care over Biased Refusal to Enforce Procedural Punishment
This biased treatment serves no one in our society, punishment as well as rehabilitation needs to be appropriated to each individual justly so that it is most effective to restoring them, their family and as a result society the whole. I’m not saying this out of any hatred to Dillion or the family that lost him to his addition after Dillion committed suicide a 25. At the time Dillion was still addicted to meth and at the time of his death he was in a standoff with police after threatening his mother and stepfather with a gun in their home Oklahoma News9 reported in 2011. The state police officers that refused to arrest him during their countless visits to his mobile home where he lived shooting, snorting and smoking meth were not doing him or his family any favors. The way our Criminal Justice system operates is a societal failure aided by the state. Everyone regardless of their race, class, age, sexual orientation, gender, income level or education level should be given a chance at intervention. We should never give up on any individual, especially not for ones as young as Dillion who obviously are ignorant to any better way of life and don’t have the proper tools to address the hurt in their lives in order to translate that into strength for the desire to live a productive life. The officers, the family and the interventionist were desperate to give Dillion the tools for a better life and all of our loved ones deserve this type of patient servanthood from states’ departments of corrections. Our system of corrections has gotten to the point where it is not at all corrective and its focus on punishment is failing our society at a rate quicker than we’ve been able to resolve. Now it is time to make the drastic changes that criminals called for during this years National Prison Strike a few weeks ago. Heather Ann Thompson explained the danger that prisoners face in the time after the strike, knowing this lets be intentional in calling for the fulfillment each of prisoners demands in the strike as proper addresses to the issues that we are all desperate to resolve. The solutions exists so now we must place them into effect for everyone suffering at the hands of the state’s criminal justice systems.
