Throw Away Moms – The Importance of TREATMENT vs Incarceration
Treatment vs Incarceration – does it work? To further discussion on this topic, I’m sharing this study and its findings, Throwaway Moms: Maternal Incarceration and the Criminalization of Female Poverty, written by Suzanne Allen, Chris Flaherty and Gretchen Ely, published by the Journal of Women and Social work, and appearing in the Articles section of the Chooper’s Guide website.
So many things struck me as I read it, but the most important take-away is that incarcerating mothers who have a brain disease (in this case, the brain disease of addiction) and/or a substance abuse condition (which also chemically and structurally changes the brain) without treating that disease (condition) makes no sense. Not only that, it perpetuates the cycle. In this study, for example, “More than 65% of these women were mothers of minor children, and 64% of them had lived with their children prior to incarceration (Women’s Prison Association, 2006).”
Now, this is not about not “punishing” a person for committing a crime. It is about recognizing that people who are drug addicts/alcoholics or substance abusers have chemically and structurally changed their brains. This results in brain changes that make it impossible for the person to behave responsibly / normally, because the brain controls everything a person things, feels, says and does. A brain under the influence, with structurally and chemically changed neural networks, cannot function normally.
See related post: SPECT Scans Showing Impact of Alcohol Abuse on the Brain
Furthermore, children in these situations are exposed to three of the five key risk factors for developing their own substance misuse problem/addiction, namely: genetics, social environment and childhood trauma. Thus treating these mothers [and certainly the same would be true in the case of incarcerated fathers with addiction and/or substance abuse] not only helps the mother to become her best self and thus a better mother, less likely to be a repeat offender, it helps her help her children, thereby breaking the cycle.
Lisa Frederiksen
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Our prisons are filled with people who have committed drug related crimes, and this does nothing to help the person who committed the crime when they are just thrown in jail. Treatment in the long run would save lives and money, as I would imagine there would less repeat offenders. They need to accept responsibility for what they have done, but treatment makes so much more sense. Unfortunately with the budget cuts, even prison treatment programs are being discontinued.