Sir, – I fully concur with Fr Peter McVerry that the solution to drug related criminality is not to continue to incarcerate people. Figures show that in 2022 there were 825 prisoners on a waiting list for counselling and that people in prison are unlikely to be able to access treatment on completion of their sentence.
Within society there appears to be a lack of understanding of how long-term drug use is a coping mechanism for childhood abuse, often childhood sexual abuse. When a person is sexually abused as a child, they carry the blame and shame internally, especially males who can struggle to disclose such abuse.
The lack of societal understanding of the effects of childhood sexual abuse and how this can result in a coping mechanism such as drug use, results in societal stigmatisation which compounds the person’s self-stigmatisation and feelings of shame.
Drug use can be an automatic coping reaction and until the person can understand their own behaviour it is very difficult to change such behaviour as the drug use is often a coping reaction to complex PTSD. In my experience, once a person understands how their behaviour is a reaction to trauma then comes the choice to change. However, due to long waiting lists for counselling in prison there is a strong likelihood that the prisoners will continue to self-medicate while incarcerated.
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In addition, due to the nature of the prison environment, it is very difficult for a person to engage in trauma-related therapy as the environment is not conducive to enabling the prisoner to let down their own protective mechanisms.
When you consider the cost of incarcerating one person is on average €80,000 a year and that on being released from prison there is a strong likelihood that the person will reoffend due to their continued drug use, one has to question the logic in continuing with this process.
Research clearly shows that this approach is not working and that there is a need to find an alternative solution, such as adequately funding community and residential treatment centres which would not only have a positive impact on the drug user but also society as a whole. – Yours, etc,
SHARON MALLOY,
Willow Community Counselling,
Athy,
Co Kildare.