Send a Message to Mary

Chrisitan Guy (amazing name!) has a blog running on The Telegraph on prison and drug rehabilitation which is interesting. Some pretty harsh comments as per usual on discussions concerning men and women who are viewed so, so negatively by the 'respectable' members of society. Well, it is the Telegraph!

Here is the gist of the article...

Dame Anne Owers, publishing her seventh prison inspection report at the end of last month, provided a warning about almost every aspect of our prison system. Alarming but recurrent, her report once again exposed the inadequacies of prison policy, including the stark conclusion that government continues to fail to tackle drugs in prison.

The prison drugs trade is rife, valued at a staggering annual £100 million by the former head of treatment policy at the National Offender Management Service. So deeply saturated is the system that prisoners, such as a recent recovering heroine addict, are desperately attempting to flee custody and avoid their inevitable relapse.

Illegal substances, ranging from cannabis to crack cocaine, find their way through security checkpoints onto the prison wings on a daily basis. Smuggling techniques range from the subtle, such as kissing during visits, to the bafflingly blatant, throwing parcels over prison walls. Drug testing procedures, the results of which claim a ludicrously low 9 per cent of prisoners use drugs, are easily navigated and fundamentally flawed.

Prisoner treatment plans utilise a range of programmes not yet evaluated. Many of these programmes push prisoners toward comfortable maintenance instead of freedom - effective interventions, which get people off drugs and reduce re-offending, such as 12-step programme from the Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust, are rare. The thriving drugs culture in our prisons today, which hinders rehabilitation and fuels re-offending, is facilitated by a fatalistic strategy of toleration and containment.

Now, I don't know whether drugs are so rife in prison or not, I guess it is likely that they are, but I can tell you, I was checked pretty thoroughly recently and a dog sniffed me out from head to toe. This apparently was the first time the Prison Chaplaincy Team had been dog sniffed and frisked by the prison staff. It was the first time I had ever stepped foot in a prison in my life and I can tell you it was an eye-opener!

From men and women who I have talked with recently, even tonight, the story I get from the people on the receiving end of society's 'treatments' is that they are really in a much better position to give politicians and professionals the real story of how difficult it is to overcome drug and alcohol addiction.

When I was at ATD Fourth World in London, which is probably where I should be now, rather than spreading myself so very thinly, time and time again the volunteers heard from people living in poverty that politicians always come along claiming they have the answers to people's dilemmnas, but really, it isn't true and if they only listened to people living in poverty, they may come up with something pretty good. But, of course, politicians are university-educated and therefore the only real solutions to people's problems can come from 'think-tanks' and the like and drug 'professionals'. I'm sorry but you're probably not a drug professional until you've professed your drug addiction! ATD Fourth World totally revolutionised my view of what politics and society is about, simply because, it revealed the limitations of politicians and showed me that only people 'on the ground' ever made a difference.

Likewise, if professionals and politicians listened to people struggling to overcome addictions such as drug and alcohol (mea culpa!) addictions then for those battling, as well as those trying to help, things might really improve. So, for example, I talked with one man this evening who is a recovering heroin addict. He is 7 years clean "touch wood," he said, and has ended up in Brighton this week. When he was nicked for heroin he actually pleaded with the judge to send him to jail because he knew if he got off the charge, he would "be shoplifting in 20 minutes time." He wanted rehab, he wanted it fast and he wanted to change his life...Clearly, there were very few available places on quality care rehabilitation schemes, preferably residentital, in the local area and he wanted the next best thing: Prison. This, from the testimony I have gathered, is still the case.

The great mistake that those in authority make about people is to think that people are bad. People are not bad! People do bad things, but everyone, mea culpa, wants to change things about themselves which they know are not right! My opinion is not just borne out of personal experience but from the local people I meet who are desperately poor and who are in a cycle of addiction, homelessness and rejection.

A lady I know is thinking of breaking parole just so she can go to prison and escape her life on the streets, getting soaked through, because Brighton & Hove Council Rough Sleepers Unit only put her up for a night if temperatures have dropped below zero. This is a young lady, on her own, yes with alcohol dependency, but totally and utterly vulnerable. Where are the services for street homeless people, yes, and I know it is shocking, street homeless women, when they are needed? I'll tell you where. Nowhere. Why? Because she does not have a "local connection" and so the Council, rather than assisting her with supportive accommodation or rehabilitation or detox, desperately want to send her to Kent. Kent?! Who does she know in Kent?! Why does she belong any more in Kent than she does in Brighton?!

Therefore, in the absence of any Council services to provide for street homeless people, whose responsility is it to take care of the homeless? Well, those who feel they have a responsibility are usually Christians. CCK, for all of their patronising preaching, tonight gave the young lady in question new clothes as she was wet through. It is Chrisitians, Catholic or not who are providing services of which the Council does not even think. The service to the homeless, anti-freeze, also is Christian. The soup run is run by parishioners, as well as non-church going volunteers on the sea-front. Why? Because Christians of all denominations know that what they do for the Poor they do for Christ Himself. Because Christians know that each person is made in the image and likeness of God. Because Christians know that people are valuable in the eyes of God and not just statistics at the end of a Council or Prison database on reoffending!

A lot of people in this world are "do-gooders" and I understand why people find this irritating, but there does come a point when you realise that a lot of people in this World are getting repetitively shat upon by local government and are indeed seen as 'problems' rather than people in their own right. Be assured that men and women who are street homeless and suffer addictions are complex people, but do not look down upon them, for they are very often living a vicious cycle from which there is little escape. Yes, they need God, yes I need God, yes we all need God, but God doesn't zap any of us and take away our misery, pain and addictions all in one go. God forgives! Many of the street homeless have faith, more faith than I and my Rosaries were snapped up pretty quickly this evening. The founder of ATD Fourth World said, "Learn from the Poor, for the Poor are the Church!" How right he was! If only there were a monastery in Brighton that would take the poor girl in! As we know, there was one in Lewes, but Henry VIII had it mown to the ground!