Having grown up in Baltimore and being a student entering the mental health field, I found this article by Jim Joyner in the Baltimore Sun extremely important. He writes about the state’s decision to end a program called the Public Safety Compact, which is aimed at ending recidivism and giving prisoners a second chance. The Public Safety Compact is a part of the Safe and Sound Campaign of Maryland. The PSC is an agreement between Baltimore non-profit organizations and the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to help parolees find jobs and stay sober. The program’s goal is to save money by keeping the parolees from returning to jail and helping them assimilate back into society successfully. The contract on this program ends on Saturday, but Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen expresses her unhappiness with this decision and explains the grim reality that “in our city, 8 out of 10 use illegal substances, and 4 out of 10 have undiagnosed mental illness.”
The issue of addiction an incarceration is not a new one, and is one that is frequently discussed by political candidates. Addiction is a disease, and the best way to support the people suffering from it is to treat them, not punish them. Incarceration due to minor drug offenses causes overcrowding in prisons, which is a major problem nationally. However, there is a lot of stigma surrounding addiction, and not everyone agrees that it should be approached like other diseases. The idea that it is something “people bring on themselves” and should have to fix themselves is responsible for a lot of the discontent surrounding programs such as the PSC. In the article, Wen calls the prisoners struggling with addiction “our most vulnerable citizens” and urges the state to reconsider ending a program that has been found to be successful for many of them. We have been talking a lot about what kind of changes must be made in order to better health care. As far as addiction, or many other mental health issues, go, we need to work in our communities to get rid of the stigma that leads people to believe “our most vulnerable citizens” do not deserve our help. Until we change how we look at these issues, it will be very difficult to help this population.
Details about Safe and Sound and the PSC: http://www.abell.org/case-studies/safe-and-sound-campaignpublic-safety-compact
Sociology of Healthcare 