Substance Abuse Treatment Instead of Incarceration Essay

Across the United States and throughout the world there is an epidemic of epic proportion involving drug addiction. Here in North Carolina the majority of the Department of Corrections inmate population is known to have substance abuse problems. (Price, 62) Along with this epidemic is the growing problem of prison overcrowding. There is a correlation between the two. Many of today’s correctional facilities house inmates that have committed drug related crimes or crimes that they committed while under the influence. There is a solution that would help society and lessen the overcrowding of the penal system. The solution is to help those that are committing crimes because of an addiction disorder. There is viable evidence that this solution†¦show more content†¦There are also biological and genetic propensities for addiction such as genes that have been identified as taking part in the addiction process like some genes have been found to make a person more susceptible t o a disease. Treatment is needed for this disease like any other disease. Sometimes medication to reduce the harm, like the AIDs cocktail or methadone treatment, is meted out to offset the disease. Healing other mental issues and behavioral changes can be beneficial also. The definition of addiction is the continuing, compulsive use of a substance despite negative physical, mental or societal consequences of the substance. (Drug addiction and drug abuse, 1) To be psychologically dependent upon a substance is to feel the need to have the substance to maintain the feeling of well being. (Drug addiction and drug abuse, 1) Physical need is determined by tolerance levels for the substance. There would be a need for increase in dosage to achieve the same feeling. (Drug addiction and drug abuse, 1) Addiction causes changes in the chemical makeup of the brain itself. Once the chemicals from the substance are introduced past the blood brain barrier the chemical reactions are changed. The ne urons and neurotransmitters function a differently. Survival instincts that are the responsibility of the deeper recesses of the brain are changed. Cancer cells are changed by chemicals or radiation so too areShow MoreRelatedThe Effects Of Substance Use And Incarceration894 Words   |  4 PagesUnited State s long and complex history of substance use and incarceration. Some could make a strong argument that our country s battle against substance use has been a misguided, ill conceived, expensive, and discriminatory attempt which produced inauspicious results. The War on Drugs and Deinstitutionalization are two such attempts. This paper will analyze how these policy blunders have formed a strong association between substance use and incarceration, how current practice and research is attemptedRead MoreSubstance Abuse Treatment and Proposition 361208 Words   |  5 Pagessystem incarcerating offenders who have substance abuse related issues instead of providing a way for treatment o r rehabilitation outside of incarceration. Through public policies regarding criminal justice interventions that address drug use and crime, an initiative was created to provide treatment services as a diversion to incarceration. The Diversion-to-Treatment Law that was created in California is called Proposition 36 also known as the â€Å"Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (SACPA) of 2000†Read MoreLiterature Review On Recidivism854 Words   |  4 PagesLiterature Review Correctional Treatment: An Effective Model for Change This particular study uses the therapeutic community theory model (TC) of treatment to reduce recidivism. The journal article discusses the development and the history of (TC). Furthermore, it uses the TC) model in the Oregon prison correctional system to validate this particular method of treatment. The purpose of the study: The purpose of this study was to show that an effective drug treatment program in the criminal justiceRead MoreThe Incarceration Of The Prison Policy Institute1369 Words   |  6 Pages IV. Inform and persuade you that by utilizing rehab over incarceration for non violent drug offenders we as a nation can combat the wasteful spending, the addiction issue in our nation, and the fact our incarceration system fails these individuals. Main Point Sub-Point Sub-Point BODY I. In our society we are faced with a drug addiction problem that is not being dealt with properly. Our use of incarceration as a means to deal with this problem has not only been costlyRead MoreDrug Policy And Funding Has Not Changed Much Over The Past Two Decades1505 Words   |  7 Pagestoward a comprehensive approach; one that focuses on prevention, treatment and enforcement (p.1). One approach to this is allotting billions of dollars to the Federal Drug Control Budget. As of 2014, the majority of funding for this budget went into supply reduction (59.9%), demand reduction (40.1%), and domestic law enforcement (36.8%). Only 35 percent of the funding was provided for treatment of drug abuse, and 5.1 percent for drug abuse prevention (Sacco, 2014, p.16). These numbers have not changedRead MoreHomelessness And Mental Health And Substance Abuse878 Words   |  4 PagesHomelessness as a result of deinstitutionalization in the US increased dramatically, tripling in 182 cities over the court of the 1980s (Bagenstos, 2012). In addition, mental health and substance abuse is a major problem in across the country because of homelessness. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffers from some form of severe mental illness (DMHAS, 2014). Consequently, mental illnesses disruptRead MoreNon-Violent Drug Offenders -Porp. 361741 Words   |  7 Pageslock them up for long periods of time, while other feel the solution lies within treatment facilities and expanded social programs. With both sides having valid points we must then evaluate what is the cost of correcting this problem is and if fixing these non-violent offenders are worth it. A plan that would help in the over population of the prisons is to have the non-violent drug offenders sent to treatment instead of prison, to have them spend time in halfway homes, and be monitored by probationRead MoreYou Walk Into A Nicu1177 Words   |  5 Pagesand maybe gain some direction of how to introduce this topic is a step in the right direction. First, I want to address some statistics on drug-addicted babies. Approximately 440,000 babies are born each year with a dependency to at least 1 substance. (HRF, 2015). The average cost for a hospital stay for an infant born with opiate withdrawal or other dependency issues is $53,400. (HRF, 2015) â€Å"Based on hospitalization figures from 2012, about 5 out of every 1,000 births in the United States isRead MoreThe Effects Of Residential Schools On Disadvantaged Backgrounds855 Words   |  4 Pagesassimilate Aboriginal children and prepare them for living in a white society. Instead, they caused tremendous psychological abuse to not only the children being forced to leave their homes, but also to their guardians. After this traumatic event, many aboriginal people resorted to substance abuse in order to cope with their experience in these schools. One study reported â€Å"82 percent of individuals were involved in substance abuse behaviors after attending residential schools.â €  (Chansonneuve, 2007, p.22)Read MoreHistory Of The South Carolina Department Of Corrections1301 Words   |  6 Pagesjob skills, obtain their GED, earn vocational certificates, receive substance abuse treatment, learn about how crimes affect victims and even assist in teaching youths about life in prison.† The Division of Programs and Services are broken into nine main subdivisions: crime prevention, inmate services, volunteers, the Palmetto Unified School District, the Division of Industries, shock incarceration, behavioral and substance abuse, and YOPRS intensive supervision. These main subdivisions are further

Immaculata University Admission SAT Scores, Admit Rate

Analysis Of Frank Sargeson s Short Stories Conversation...

Connections One might have heard about Frank Sargeson many times, but never really had the opportunity to know more about him. This text offers the chance to learn about his contribution to New Zealand literature. Frank Sargeson was one of New Zealand’s most important short story writers. He was born in Hamilton on the 21st, March 1903 and died in Auckland, the first of March of 1982. His peculiar works contributed to creating a special language. Like Katherine Mansfield, who is considered to be the first who used New Zealand’s modernist writing style, Sargeson has been responsible for placing New Zealand’s literature on the world map. Because he lived in the years when New Zealanders were still looking for their own identity, as most Pakeha at that time considered Britain their motherland, it was complicated for him to distinguish himself from the rest of them. My aim in this essay is to identify, analyse and critique the similarities and differences of four Frank Sargesonà ¢â‚¬â„¢s short stories: ‘Conversation with my Uncle’, ‘Cats by the Tail’, ‘A Piece of Yellow Soap’ and ‘Chaucerian’. Many things intrigued me about Sargeson such as: the development of anecdotes into short stories, the transcript of the New Zealand colloquial language, and the use of simple words leading to a breathtaking level of complexity in his stories. But what impressed me the most was the fact that he almost never referred to himself in his workings, keeping a low, mysterious profile. In every story we

The Snows of Kilimanjaro - Analysis free essay sample

The story opens with a paragraph about Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, which is also called the â€Å"House of God. † There is, we are told, the frozen carcass of a leopard near the summit. No one knows why it is there. Then we are introduced to  Harry, a writer dying of gangrene, and his rich wifeHelen, who are on safari in Africa. Harry’s situation makes him irritable, and he speaks about his own death in a matter-of-fact way that upsets his wife, predicting that a rescue plane will never come. He quarrels with her over everything, from whether he should drink a whiskey-and-soda to whether she should read to him. Helen is obviously concerned for his welfare, but self-pity and frustration make him unpleasant to her. He then begins to ruminate on his life experiences, which have been many and varied, and on the fact that he feels he has never reached his potential as a writer because he has chosen to make his living by marrying a series of wealthy women. In italicized portions of the text that are scattered throughout the story, Hemingway narrates some of Harry’s experiences in a stream-of-consciousness style. Harry’s first memories are of traveling around Europe following a battle, hiding a deserter in a cottage, hunting and skiing in the mountains, playing cards during a blizzard, and hearing about a bombing run on a train full of Austrian officers. Harry then falls asleep and wakes in the evening to find Helen returning from a shooting expedition. He meditates on how she is really thoughtful and a good wife to him, but how his life has been spent marrying a series of women who keep him as â€Å"a proud possession† and neglecting his true talent, writing. Helen, he remembers, is a rich widow who was bored by the series of lovers she took before she met him and who married him because she admired his writing and they had similar interests. Harry then recalls the process by which he developed gangrene two weeks before: he had been trying to get a picture of some water-buck and had scratched his knee on a thorn. He had not used iodine and it had become septic. As Helen returns to drink cocktails with Harry, they make up their quarrel. Harry’s second memory sequence then begins, and he recalls how he once patronized a series of prostitutes in Constantinople while pining for a woman in New York. Specifically, he had a fight with a British soldier over an Armenian prostitute and then left Constantinople for Anatolia, where he ran from an army of Turkish soldiers. Later, he recalls that he returned to Paris and to his then-wife. Helen and Harry eat dinner, and then Harry has another memory, this time of how his grandfather’s log house burned down. He then relates how he fished in the Black Forest and how he lived in a poor quarter of Paris and felt a kinship with his neighbors because they were poor. Next, he remembers a ranch and a boy he turned in to the authorities after the boy protected Harry’s horse feed by shooting a thief. Next, he remembers an officer named Williamson who was hit by a bomb and to whom Harry subsequently fed all his morphine tablets. As Harry lies on his cot remembering, he feels the presence of death and associates it with a hyena that is running around the edge of the campsite. Presently, Helen has Harry’s cot moved into the tent for the night, and just as she does, he feels death lying on his chest and is unable to speak. Harry dreams that it is the next morning and that a man called  Compton  has come with a plane to rescue him. He is lifted onto the plane and watches the landscape go by beneath him. Suddenly, he sees the snow-covered top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and knows that is where he is bound. Helen wakes up in the middle of the night to a strange hyena cry and sees Harry dead on his cot. ANALYSIS This story focuses on the self-critical ruminations and memories of a writer dying of a preventable case of gangrene on safari. Its main themes are death and regret, and Harry’s morbid thoughts epitomize a classic case of taking things for granted. Harry takes his blessings, including his caring wife, his full life, and his writing talent, for granted, and on his deathbed muses on how he could have appreciated each more. His main regret, of course, is that he has not reached his full potential as a writer because he has chosen to make a living by marrying wealthy women rather than memorializing his many and varied life experiences in writing. The progression of his gangrene symbolizes his rotting sense of self-worth. This last regret is made so bitter to Harry because, as he admits, it is his own fault he has not adequately exercised his great talent: â€Å"He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed in. † In a strange parallel, it is also Harry’s fault that he developed gangrene; by not using iodine on his scratch, he allowed it to become septic and is therefore to blame for his impending death. Viewed in this light, Harry’s predicament is self-inflicted, and is therefore a fitting punishment for his repeated acts of self-betrayal over the years. The lingering question of the story is how Harry’s situation is resolved by the dream sequence that ends the narration. Does his journey to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro symbolize Harry’s acceptance of his punishment and acquiescent passage into the afterlife, or does it stand for Harry’s redemption as a character and continuing desire to rise above his past mistakes, even at the moment of his death? What does Kilimanjaro stand for? There is abundant symbolism in this story, as many scholars have noted. The actual significance and meaning of these symbols has been hotly debated, but generally, the frozen leopard on the summit of Kilimanjaro is associated with death, immortality, and possibly redemption. The hyena and vultures are associated with illness, fear, and death, and Kilimanjaro itself, though its role has sparked the most controversy among scholars and critics, seems associated with a sort of redemptive heavenly afterlife. In addition, throughout the story, low-lying, hot plains areas are associated with difficult or painful episodes in Harry’s life, including the situation in which he begins the story, and snowy mountainous areas are associated with his happier, more uplifting experiences, including his final imagined ascent to the top of Kilimanjaro. In addition, gangrene, the rotting of the flesh, is symbolic of Harry’s rotting soul. In terms of style, Hemingway narrates the sequences between Harry and Helen in a straightforward third person format and breaks into italicized stream-of-consciousness for Harry’s many memory sequences. These memories are often conveyed using run-on sentences and consist of bewildering pastiches of characters, places, and events which are consistent with Harry’s delirium. According to Hemingway scholars, these memories are mostly autobiographical. Using Harry as a vehicle, Hemingway writes of a log house he visited as a child in Michigan, of his experiences during World War I, of his life in Paris with his first wife and their fishing trip to the Black Forest, of his skiing trips in Austria, and of a location near the Yellowstone River in Wyoming. Harry, as a character, produces similes and metaphors with regularity as he speaks to Helen (â€Å"Love is a dunghill†¦And I’m the cock that gets on it to crow†; â€Å"Your damned money was my armour†). This is also true during his memory sequences (â€Å"the snow as smooth to see as cake frosting and as light as powder and he remembered the noiseless rush the speed made as you dropped down like a bird†; â€Å"in some way he could work the fat off his soul the way a fighter went into the mountains to work and train in order to burn it out of his body†). www. gradesaver. ro