November 15, 2010

Mass Incarceration

In this essay Heroux says, "Predicting behavior is about probability not absolutes." Nonetheless the MA legislature codified the rule that sex offenders will repeat based on probability. Moreover psychiatrists are allowed to testify in court predicting future behavior, "dangerousness," of persons accused of mental illness. They use personal opinion as if it were science.

Heroux says, "the best crime prevention begins at home." But often the home breeds crime. One indicator of future criminal behavior is not having a father in the home, two parents. Yet MA public policy encourages single-parent homes.

Equating crime to illness was public policy Germany under the National Socialists. Social problems were medicalized. There is no appeal from a medical diagnosis. Jews were designated vermin which needed to be eliminated.

Heroux mentions some causes of illness, but the main issue in the USA is that the medical industry treats illnesses. It does not promote prevention. That is because the medical industry is run by the drug industry.

Heroux says, "Thinking that you can just keep them in the hospital where they won’t get sick or get others sick." That fails to recognize that 90,000 (some say 100,000) persons die each year from medical negligence. Some protocols are as simple as washing hands between patients and cleaning equipment.

Heroux says, "the percentage of female inmates with mental illness in the Massachusetts DOC is around 65-70%. This isn’t a perfect analogy but you get the idea." I do not get the idea. Does Heroux suggest that mental illness causes crime? Many professionals, even psychiatrists e.g., E. Fuller Torrey believe that. He promotes forced drugging as a result. Courts, run by and for lawyers share that view. Has Heroux ever scrutinized psychiatry which is personal opinion masquerading as science? Merging the criminal justice system with psychiatry is irrational. How can treatment be punishment? Why are police powers used to enforce psychiatric diagnoses?

Heroux's discussion of politicians and criminal justice is simplistic. Spineless politicians accept money from corrections officers unions and pass laws for their benefit, not to address abuses of the system. In CA that union was the largest contributor to a campaign for governor a few years ago. The drug industry and the psychiatric industry does the same and have created a legal system which abuses humans and does not cure illnesses, but instead creates more problems.

Heroux's conclusion is focused in the right direction but fails to recognize that the criminal justice system is corrupt. Is Heroux aware that the FBI in Boston framed four white men for murder in the state courts. The same FBI field office permitted fugitive James Bulger (indicted for 19 homicides), to run freely in MA. There is no scrutiny of the many police agencies, nor the prosecutors in this state. Finally there are lawyers who take taxpayer money to defend persons accused of crime, and then take money to not put on any defense. For persons accused of mental illness lawyers work with psychiatrists instead of protecting the rights of their clients. Making matters worse many professionals in the criminal justice system believe that a person loses his or her constitutional rights when accused of mental illness.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/x290096480/Guest-commentary-Mass-incarceration-in-Massachusetts

Guest commentary: Mass incarceration in Massachusetts
By Paul Heroux
Cambridge Chronicle
Nov 15, 2010 @ 12:40 PM

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