{"id":10220,"date":"2020-06-23T12:36:59","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T16:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=10220"},"modified":"2020-06-23T12:36:59","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T16:36:59","slug":"masection35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2020\/06\/23\/masection35\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts should stop “committing” people to prisons and jails for drug treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the midst of an uprising against police violence and racism, communities across the country are asking a simple question: why are police and jails used to treat social problems?<\/a> Wouldn’t mental illness, substance use, homelessness, and poverty be better handled within the community, and without the threat of incarceration? <\/p>\n

In Massachusetts, men who have substance use disorder can be put in jail or prison when they are committed for drug treatment<\/a> (“committed” meaning involuntarily taken into state custody). This is not a rare occurance: in 2018, courts committed over 5,700 people under “Section 35<\/a>.” Nearly two-thirds of those evaluated for commitment were men, and nearly a quarter were homeless. These men have not committed a crime, but wind up in jail nonetheless. As we know, jails have an abysmal track record<\/a> when it comes to health care—and jail time is no substitute<\/a> for substance use treatment. <\/p>\n

Massachusetts is the last state in the country that locks people up when they’re committed for substance use, but now, the state’s Joint Committee on Health Care Financing<\/a> is considering advancing a bill that would end this practice. We signed on to a letter<\/a> written by Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts that supports H.4531, the bill that would ban the use of incarceration for men who are committed for drug treatment. <\/p>\n

It is past time for Massachusetts to stop using the criminal justice system as a band-aid for social problems, and to stop punishing people<\/a> with medical conditions. A good place to start would be to stop locking up people who need drug treatment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Prison Policy Initiative signs on to a letter urging Massachusetts state lawmakers to stop jailing people who need substance use treatment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[73],"class_list":["post-10220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10220"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10231,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10220\/revisions\/10231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10220"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=10220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}