Sadly, after hearing some stories from the Inside, Swede's story doesn't surprise me one bit. I've heard so many stories of what amounts to torture it makes me sick. I don't know that imprisoning people is helpful necessarily but I do believe there are people who shouldn't be out walking around.
"For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them."
-Sir Thomas More in Utopia
I'm no hippie-commune utopian kind of girl, but that's a true quote, and it's what the prison system does. I've heard varying numbers but somewhere around 75% of prisoners go back within 5 years. And it's no surprise if we don't offer them skills to stay out of prison. It seems ridiculous to incarcerate people, make it difficult or impossible for them to gain any skills or education in prison, and let them hang out with people who are basically thugs. What will they learn? They'll learn to be better thugs.
It takes strength and determination for a person to overcome their surroundings; most people can't do it. I can't, I've proven it. The only way I could stop drugs is not be around drugs and people who do them. If you walked into my living room right now and put a sack of meth on the table, I 100% guarantee I would do it. I had to change my surroundings.
There's no easy answer there. I think every square inch of a prison should be under video and audio surveillance, monitored by an independent, off-site auditor that has no direct communication with the prison, or is perhaps even anonymous (he'd turn the video over to the DA and the DA would take it from there). Guards should be held personally, legally responsible for their conduct. How many would behave more appropriately if they knew they might end up in general population with the people they used to abuse?
We made the choice as a society that no cruel or unusual punishment should be employed. We also decided that allowing someone to die of a treatable medical condition or suffer through a terminal one without medical intervention constitutes cruel or unusual punishment. Therefore we have to provide medical treatment.
The other thing is that most detox situations would happen before a trial, which means he's still presumed innocent. This person would have been picked up off the street doing whatever it was that got him arrested and that's when he'd need to say he's an addict and needs to detox. Most police departments even ask about such issues during the booking process. There's a long list of questions about health problems, required medications, whether you are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, etc. Unfortunately most aren't going to say anything because cops tend to look down on that sort of thing. It seems likely that the first time anyone knows this person needed to detox is when they find him convulsing, or dead, in his cell. Perhaps just being under the influence itself shouldn't be illegal, or if it's admitted during booking it can't be prosecuted. That might give someone their opportunity to get help without getting another year on their sentence.
(sorry for the length. Believe it or not this was the edited version!)