We Need A Better Approach to the Opioid Crisis
By Jenna Moll, Deputy Executive Director, Justice Action Network
The Justice Action Network was formed to bring the left and the right together to make our justice system more effective and our communities safer. This effort includes recognizing that incarceration isn’t the answer for every ill facing our society. Right now, our country is facing an opioid and heroin crisis that has devastated families, broken apart homes and communities, strained health and corrections budgets, and packed jail cells with addicts and those suffering from withdrawal. For these reasons, we are concerned that the our country is moving in the wrong direction by relying on our justice system for the solution.
The facts are these: drug deaths in America are rising faster than ever. Hospitals struggle to meet the increasing numbers of opioid users coming through their doors. The crisis has reached a fever pitch and our criminal justice system doesn’t have the resources necessary to address those going through withdrawal, nor sufficient ability to rehabilitate those who suffer from addictions. Detoxification from opioids is dangerous, and without the proper medical care it often ends in relapse. The current approach does not address the problem at its root.
To address this crisis and improve public safety, we must face these facts and stop expecting our criminal justice system to handle a public health crisis. We need to expand treatment options and effective alternatives for those suffering from addiction and let our jails and prisons focus on public safety issues.
Over the past few months, we’ve seen a bipartisan chorus of voices that have all echoed the same sentiment: we cannot jail our way out of this problem. Republicans, Democrats, senators, governors, public health officials, and law enforcement officials, the message is the same: we need a new approach to handling the growing addiction crisis, now.
Newt Gingrich and Van Jones:
“The opioid epidemic is now the greatest public health and public safety crisis facing this nation. It claims the lives of 91 Americans each day, tearing apart families and ravaging communities. As the war on drugs demonstrated, we cannot incarcerate our way out of this problem.
Rather than fill our prisons and jails with people who are addicted to drugs or who suffer from mental illness, Congress should look to proven solutions that promote accountability and treatment. One model that deserves more national attention is treatment courts, such as those for drugs and veterans’ treatment.” (TIME)
Rahul Gupta, Health Commissioner (WV):
“We can’t jail our way out of this,” said Rahul Gupta, health commissioner for West Virginia, the state with the highest rate of drug overdose deaths in the country. “This is a chronic public health disaster.” (Politico)
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R-OH):
“I think it drives home the reality of what heroin is. If you can hear this, you have a heroin problem in your community because every community in the state of Ohio has a heroin problem. Second, though, we want to be able to get people into treatment.” (WYSO)
“It’s one tool in the battle against the opiate problem,” he said. “What really is required for these drug courts is the judge and the staff to be tied into the treatment community, as well as the mental health resources in the community. That’s just very important.” (Canton Repository)
Governor Steve Bullock (D-MT):
“We know that anyone who enters into a treatment court has the potential not just to be another statistic, but to be a success.” (KTVH)
Bob Berlin, DuPage County State’s Attorney (R-IL):
“Someone who’s an addict, they’re stealing money to support their habit, putting them in prison for a year or two years where they’ll serve half the time and get out doesn’t really solve the problem because they continue to do the same things if you don’t treat the drug addiction.” (WBEZ)
David Mara, Drug Czar (NH):
Just a week on the drug czar job, Mara said the state is planning a three-pronged attack against the opioid crisis involving treatment, education and enforcement. He said it costs $30,000 a year to incarcerate someone and that money is better spent on treatment. However, Mara warned, police departments will be arresting people who deal drugs that take lives and break families. (Fosters)
Senator Ed Markey (D-MA):
Markey, however, called on the president to further work with Congress and use his expected declaration to commit new emergency funding and expand access to treatment and recovery services that work — “not the ineffective law enforcement and incarceration approaches of the past.” (MassLive)
Kevin Joyce, Cumberland County Sheriff (ME):
“The misnomer is once they are locked up and in jail, we fix them,” Joyce said of individuals with drug addictions. “The reality is, I’m not fixing them. Most individuals that are pretrial are there for an average of 27 days. I can’t begin to start any drug rehabilitation, nor can any other jail.”
These voices could not be more different, but there’s a reason they’re all calling for the same course of action: because it’s quite possibly the only way to address this crisis head on. And we agree. We’re never going to be able to jail our way out of this problem.
More from the U.S. Justice Action Network:
The U.S. Justice Action Network is the first action organization in the country to bring together progressive and conservative partners, collaborate with law enforcement, and employ federal and state-specific lobbying, public advocacy, and public education efforts to pass sweeping criminal justice reforms.
