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The number of people incarcerated in the U.S. now exceeds 2.3 million, due in part to the increasing criminalization of drug use: over 25% of people incarcerated in jails and prisons are there for drug offenses. Judging Addicts examines this increased criminalization of drugs and the medicalization of addiction in the U.S. by focusing on drug courts, where defendants are sent to drug treatment instead of prison. Rebecca Tiger explores how advocates of these courts make their case for what they call “enlightened coercion,” detailing how they use medical theories of addiction to justify increased criminal justice oversight of defendants who, through this process, are defined as both “sick” and “bad.” Tiger shows how these courts fuse punitive and therapeutic approaches to drug use in the name of a “progressive” and “enlightened” approach to addiction. She critiques the medicalization of drug users, showing how the disease designation can complement, rather than contradict, punitive approaches, demonstrating that these courts are neither unprecedented nor unique, and that they contain great potential to expand punitive control over drug users. Tiger argues that the medicalization of addiction has done little to stem the punishment of drug users because of a key conceptual overlap in the medical and punitive approaches—that habitual drug use is a problem that needs to be fixed through sobriety. Judging Addicts presses policymakers to implement humane responses to persistent substance use that remove its control entirely from the criminal justice system and ultimately explores the nature of crime and punishment in the U.S. today.
The number of people incarcerated in the U.S. now exceeds 2.3 million, due in part to the increasing criminalization of drug use: over 25% of people incarcerated in jails and prisons are there for drug offenses. Judging Addicts examines this increased criminalization of drugs and the medicalization of addiction in the U.S. by focusing on drug courts, where defendants are sent to drug treatment instead of prison. Rebecca Tiger explores how advocates of these courts make their case for what they call “enlightened coercion,” detailing how they use medical theories of addiction to justify increased criminal justice oversight of defendants who, through this process, are defined as both “sick” and “bad.” Tiger shows how these courts fuse punitive and therapeutic approaches to drug use in the name of a “progressive” and “enlightened” approach to addiction. She critiques the medicalization of drug users, showing how the disease designation can complement, rather than contradict, punitive approaches, demonstrating that these courts are neither unprecedented nor unique, and that they contain great potential to expand punitive control over drug users. Tiger argues that the medicalization of addiction has done little to stem the punishment of drug users because of a key conceptual overlap in the medical and punitive approaches—that habitual drug use is a problem that needs to be fixed through sobriety. Judging Addicts presses policymakers to implement humane responses to persistent substance use that remove its control entirely from the criminal justice system and ultimately explores the nature of crime and punishment in the U.S. today.
The authors employ the techniques of oral history to penetrate the nether world of the drug user, giving us an engrossing portrait of life in the drug subculture during the "classic" era of strict narcotic control. Praise for the hardcover edition: "A momentous book which I feel is destined to become a classic in the category of scholarly narcotic books." —Claude Brown, author of the bestseller, Manchild in the Promised Land. "The drug literature is filled with the stereotyped opinions of non-addicted, middle-class pundits who have had little direct contact with addicts. These stories are reality. Narcotic addicts of the inner cities are both tough and gentle, deceptive when necessary and yet often generous--above all, shrewd judges of character. While judging them, the clinician is also being judged." —Vincent P. Dole, M.D., The Rockefeller Institute. "What was it like to be a narcotic addict during the Anslinger era? No book will probably ever appear that gives a better picture than this one. . . . a singularly readable and informative work on a subject ordinarily buried in clichés and stereotypes." —Donald W. Goodwin, Journal of the American Medical Association " . . . an important contribution to the growing body of literature that attempts to more clearly define the nature of drug addiction. . . . [This book] will appeal to a diverse audience. Academicians, politicians, and the general reader will find this approach to drug addiction extremely beneficial, insightful, and instructive. . . . Without qualification anyone wishing to acquire a better understanding of drug addicts and addiction will benefit from reading this book." —John C. McWilliams, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography "This study has much to say to a general audience, as well as those involved in drug control." —Publishers Weekly "The authors' comments are perceptive and the interviews make interesting reading." —John Duffy, Journal of American History "This book adds a vital and often compelling human dimension to the story of drug use and law enforcement. The material will be of great value to other specialists, such as those interested in the history of organized crime and of outsiders in general." —H. Wayne Morgan, Journal of Southern History "This book represents a significant and valuable addition to the contemporary substance abuse literature. . . . this book presents findings from a novel and remarkably imaginative research approach in a cogent and exceptionally informative manner." —William M. Harvey, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs "This is a good and important book filled with new information containing provocative elements usually brought forth through the touching details of personal experience. . . . There isn't a recollection which isn't of intrinsic value and many point to issues hardly ever broached in more conventional studies." —Alan Block, Journal of Social History
It has become almost accepted knowledge within international policy circles that efforts against drug trafficking and drug abuse violate human rights, and that the entire international drug control regime needs to be changed (or even discarded altogether) to adopt a more 'rights respecting' approach. Though this view has been promoted by many prominent figures and organisations, the author of this book uses his expertise in both human rights and drug control to show that the arguments advanced in this area do not stand close scrutiny. The arguments are in fact based on selective and questionable interpretations of international human rights standards, and on a general notion – more and more clearly stated – that there is a human right to take drugs, and that any effort to combat drug abuse by definition violates this right. There is no such right in international law, and the author objects to the misuse of human rights language as a marketing tool to bring about a 'back door' legalisation of drugs. Human rights issues must be addressed, but that in no way means that the international drug control regime must be discarded, or that efforts against drugs must be stopped.
SAGE Readings for Social Problems is a convenient and economical option for instructors who want to introduce students to scholarly literature in their social problems courses. It contains 16 short readings on topics covered in typical courses, including economic inequality, race, gender, crime, substance abuse, education, health/medicine, the environment, family, and the social construction of social problems. The articles in this collection were all chosen because they are accessible to undergraduate, avoid complicated statistical analysis, and demonstrate the range of methodological approaches to studying social problems.
After decades of the American “war on drugs” and relentless prison expansion, political officials are finally challenging mass incarceration. Many point to an apparently promising solution to reduce the prison population: addiction treatment. In Addicted to Rehab, Bard College sociologist Allison McKim gives an in-depth and innovative ethnographic account of two such rehab programs for women, one located in the criminal justice system and one located in the private healthcare system—two very different ways of defining and treating addiction. McKim’s book shows how addiction rehab reflects the race, class, and gender politics of the punitive turn. As a result, addiction has become a racialized category that has reorganized the link between punishment and welfare provision. While reformers hope that treatment will offer an alternative to punishment and help women, McKim argues that the framework of addiction further stigmatizes criminalized women and undermines our capacity to challenge gendered subordination. Her study ultimately reveals a two-tiered system, bifurcated by race and class.
The historical and social context -- The life course of baby boomers -- Relationships -- The war on drugs and mass incarceration -- The racial landscape of the drug war -- Women doing drugs -- Aging in drug use -- The culture of control expands -- Social reconstruction and social recovery -- Appendix : the older drug user study methodology
This book considers how largely accepted ‘legal truths’ about drugs and addiction are made and sustained through practices of lawyering. Lawyers play a vital and largely underappreciated role in constituting legal certainties about substances and ‘addiction’, including links between alcohol and other drugs, and phenomena such as family violence. Such practices exacerbate, sustain and stabilise ‘addicted’ realities, with a range of implications – many of them seemingly unjust – for people who use alcohol and other drugs. This book explores these issues, drawing upon data collected for a major international study on alcohol and other drugs in the law, including interviews with lawyers, magistrates and judges; analyses of case law; and legislation. Focussing on an array of legal practices, including processes of law-making, human rights deliberations, advocacy and negotiation strategies, and the sentencing of offenders, and buttressed by overarching analyses of the ethics and politics of such practices, the book looks at how alcohol and other drug ‘addiction’ emerges and is concretised through the everyday work lawyers and decision makers do. Foregrounding ‘practices’, the book also shows that law is more fragile than we might assume. It concludes by presenting a blueprint for how lawyers can rethink their advocacy practices in light of this fragility and the opportunities it presents for remaking law and the subjects and objects shaped by it. This ground-breaking book will be of interest not only to those studying and working within the field of alcohol and drug addiction but also to lawyers and judges practising in this area and to scholars in a range of disciplines, including law, science and technology studies, sociology, gender studies and cultural studies
The study of addiction is dominated by a narrow disease ideology that leads to biological reductionism. In this short volume, editors Granfield and Reinarman make clear the importance of a more balanced contextual approach to addiction by bringing to light critical perspectives that expose the historical and cultural interstices in which the disease concept of addiction is constructed and deployed. The readings selected for this anthology include both classic foundational pieces and cutting-edge contemporary works that constitute critical addiction studies. This book is a welcome addition to drugs or addiction courses in sociology, criminal justice, mental health, clinical psychology, social work, and counseling.
A book that takes you inside the culture of surveillance that pits healthcare providers against their patients Doctors and pharmacists make critical decisions every day about whether to dispense opioids that alleviate pain but fuel addiction. Faced with a drug crisis that has already claimed more than a million lives, legislatures, courts, and policymakers have enlisted the help of technology in the hopes of curtailing prescriptions and preventing deaths. This book reveals how this “Trojan horse” technology embeds the logics of surveillance in the practice of medicine, forcing care providers to police their patients while undermining public trust and doing untold damage to those at risk. Elizabeth Chiarello draws on hundreds of in-depth interviews with physicians, pharmacists, and enforcement agents across the United States to take readers to the frontlines of the opioid crisis, where medical providers must make difficult choices between treating and punishing the people in their care. States now employ prescription drug monitoring programs capable of tracking all controlled substances within a state and across state lines. Chiarello describes how the reliance on these databases blurs the line between medicine and criminal justice and pits pain sufferers against people with substance-use disorders in a zero-sum game. Shedding critical light on this brave new world of healthcare, Policing Patients urges medical providers to reaffirm their roles as healers and proposes invaluable policy solutions centered on treatment, prevention, and harm reduction.