Stories
And Poems From Drug Aid
Committed
to saving and restoring lives harmed by drug dependency
ref:
October 98 Heroinsight
Inmate's
Perspective
I would like to take this opportunity to give a
perspective of the criminal justice system and to
some extent societal ethics and attitude from the
standpoint of a long-term prisoner. I am currently
serving a 15-year sentence with a non-parole period
of six years for armed robbery, with the offences
being committed to finance a heroin addiction.
I am presently 12 months past my parole date and
if the current community attitude persists, I fully
expect to do every day of the 15 years. It could
be argued that I am a slow learner as I am 34 years
of age and have had eight months outside since I
was 22. The future is a scenario I do not relish
but I have to accept the truth as I see it although
it seems a somewhat strange and also sad truth.
I know that people are put in gaol because they
have broken the rules and so to be taught a lesson
they spend time away from the rest of the population.
My lesson is that I cannot use drugs. A conservative
estimate would be that seven out of 10 of my fellow
inmates are being taught the same lesson.
I have been dependent on opiates since I was 16
years old and am still drug dependent and so it
should be asked what I have learned from being in
prison all this time and what will be learned serving
the rest of this sentence. Have I become or will
I become a rehabilitated person who is acceptable
within the framework of society?
Whilst in prison I have completed all the courses
available to me so as to address my offending behaviour
and ultimately overcome my addiction. I have tried
to tackle this issue with reason, rationale and
integrity and yet I continue to be opiate dependent.
Have I failed myself or has the system failed me?
I accept the responsibility of my own actions but
I have trouble accepting how keeping me in prison
for 15 years will help me deal with and ultimately
overcome my dependency to opiates. I also believe
that society should have trouble accepting that
spending their collective tax dollars on keeping
drug dependent people in prison for their entire
sentence is an exercise in futility.
Common sense dictates alternative treatments are
to be encouraged and explored so that drug dependent
inmates (DDIs) may make the successful transition
to citizen. At present the only rehabilitation that
is offered is a number of similar drug-awareness
and relapse prevention courses that are abstinence
based.
Basically, don't use and you won't get into trouble.
How do you abstain when truthfully you don't want
to and even after you have completed and learned
what the courses offer, and after you have spent
years of your life in prison? Abstain in an environment
where drugs are freely available? In an environment
where to encourage you with your abstinence you
are urine-tested and if the test should return a
positive reading you are placed in a detention unit
for seven days. This is solitary confinement)a cell
with a toilet and a mattress where for two one-hour
periods per day you are let into an exercise yard
the same size as your cell. Where you forego all
the `luxuries'. You spend those seven days thinking
about how you continue to fail and how next time
you are tempted, surely, you will just say no.
Maybe, for some reason, while you are standing naked
and there is a police officer looking at your penis
and other officers are observing you on a camera,
you are unable to urinate within the allocated 40
minutes, then it is deemed that you have been unable
to provide a specimen and that, too, is a major
breach of discipline and will result in seven days
in the detention unit. In addition, further encouragement
of the abstinence ideal will see your person, and
cell, within the normal confines of the prison,
regularly searched and if drugs or drug utensils
are found, then it can mean charges in an outside
court, where, once convicted, you lose any right
to remission earned on the sentence you are serving,
an additional four months on your sentence and/or
seven days in the detention unit. Any detected drug
use or failure to provide a urine sample results
in a major breach of discipline which is an automatic
five points on the inmates tally.
For each breach offence you will have five points
added to your `score' in a system where your security
classification is tied to your points. Inmates;
contact visiting privileges are also removed for
one month and the inmate must have four non-contact
visits before those privileges are restored. Apparently
the four non-contact visit rule is not regarded
as an opportunity to punish or distress those from
the community who provide the inmate with love and
support, usually family members, but as further
opportunity for the inmate to reflect upon his failure
to abstain and the consequences of that action.
Yet another concern for the DDI is that these breaches
are viewed unfavourably by the Sentence Management
staff of Corrective Services and more importantly,
the Serious Offenders Board and the Parole Board.
Most DDIs will serve out their time in either medium
or maximum security institutions due to these breaches.
When an inmate's points are 54 or higher, then they
will be housed in a maximum security institution
which in many cases is a totally inappropriate setting
for the DDI.
If it is deemed that the inmate has failed to address
his offending behaviour and until a period of time
has elapsed whereby the inmate remains breach-free,
the inmate will be denied any form of community
release. A standard response for the breach-free
requirement is no less than six months although
in most cases a long-term inmate will forego any
favourable consideration for two to three years.
The inmate will also be asked to attend and complete
courses which in many cases have already been completed
a number of times, but failure to do so would be
viewed as an unwillingness to take steps in the
rehabilitative process.
Some core program courses available to a DDI to
address their offending behaviour are Drug Awareness
Course and Relapse Prevention Course. Details of
these core program courses are available from the
Queensland Corrective Services Commission (QCSC).
It would be incorrect to say these courses are of
little or no merit but realistically they fail to
adequately address or offer real solutions to the
very complex problems associated with drug dependent
behaviour. Again the drug courses are abstinence
based and when you consider that the very reason
the vast majority of inmates are in prison is because
of their inability to abstain, then to focus the
rehabilitative process in this direction only is
unrealistic and bordering on negligent.
Although most DDIs do not benefit from these courses,
they are often repeated again because they offer
the only avenue available for the inmate to reduce
their points. A successfully completed 12-week course
can see a total of two points per course being deducted
from the inmate's score which is reviewed by the
Sentence Management once every six months. Reports
on the inmate's attitude and level of involvement
and understanding are submitted to Sentence Management
by the facilitators/custodial staff and these reports
undoubtedly play a large role in determining the
DDI's release.
It is easily seen by the DDI that the best way to
receive a favourable report is to be agreeable and
respond to tasks and questions with the expected
or most desired answers, attitude and behaviour.
The most important lesson the DDI learns, and this
is applicable to almost all of the DDI's institutional
existence, is that you never tell the truth or be
honest when discussing your drug dependence.
Whilst the QCSC continues to offer as the only form
of help courses such as these and that the model
for rehabilitation is a platform of zero-tolerance
re-enforced with such wide-ranging and hugely affecting
punitive measures, then it will continue to foster
dishonesty and denial as a form of self-preservation.
The ultimate goal of the inmate is to secure his
release and with the present attitude and mindset
that prevails in the treatment of DDIs, then the
inmate cannot afford to be honest. It would be unwise
for the inmate to admit that even though he has
made every effort to try and overcome his addiction
and has utilised all that is available to him within
the institutional environment that he is still drug-dependent.
Even after years in prison, you have not been rehabilitated,
you still don't know why you just cannot say no
and successfully abstain. How the DDI must question
his own sanity on a regular basis when he is aware
that his dependence has most hurt those who love
him/her and the disruption that this has caused
in so many people's lives and yet still continues
to be a drug-user and drug-dependent.
For the DDI to be honest and say to those who hold
sway over his future that it should be obvious that
the present policies pursued by the QCSC just are
not working and that to continue in this treatment
of DDIs without implementing proper medical treatment
and therapeutic alternative treatments such as those
available to drug-dependent people in the community,
then it is tantamount to a dereliction of duty to
the taxpayers of Queensland and the QCSC would also
be negligent in its failure to uphold its duty of
care responsibility to the DDIs housed in its prisons.
It is said that the truth shall set you free, but
to be honest about issues like this when you are
a DDI serving time in a Queensland prison, then
the only reward for honesty is more punishment.
It is preferred, and I can only base my judgement
on what I see, that the DDI continues to live a
lie and pretend that they overcame their dependence
and that the courses Sentence Management advised
them to complete really helped. That if you choose
to use then you choose to lose and that further
punishment is much more effective than treatment.
It is preferable for some not to acknowledge that
inmates overdose and sometimes die and that diseases
such as Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C are rife within
the inmate population and that at some stage nearly
every inmate is released back into the community.
That drugs, as in society, are available but in
an environment where boredom, stress, loneliness
and loathing reign supreme and that three-quarters
of the prison population are drug dependent the
inmate is better off lying and saying it does not
bother him or her and that abstinence is the best
course of action.
Where just like society the drug dependent are exploited
for their weakness and caught in a cycle of debt,
placing an emotion and financial strain on those
outside who love them. Unlike outside though, there
is NO access to appropriate treatments and without
these treatment options available, even a gaol that
was drug-free would still be releasing back into
the community people with an untreated drug dependence.
