Prisons and Token Economies

An interesting piece on incarceration and the token economy,

Because prisons are, in a sense, enclosed environments they represent somewhat of a behavioural laboratory where contingencies can be altered and controlled on a large scale. Few other settings allow for such systemic control of influencing variables.

Within prisons, inmates need to maintain some income in order to obtain many necessities and comforts. Altering the economy to a Token Economy and making these necessities and comforts contingent on engagement in skills learning or good behaviour could vastly improve behaviour in a prison system.

Additionally, since these environments are so highly controlled that access to social and recreational contact all must pass through the system – engagement in these things might be used to motivate good behaviour as well.

~ From Behavioral Science in the 21st Century

Paradise Lost

Hawaii, behind this picture perfect paradise, lies an altered reality, where drugs are destroying peoples lives. Tourists flock to Hawaii's pristine beaches looking for a taste of paradise, but it's also one of the top 10 states for illegal drug use. For many years weed, cocaine, and heroin were the drugs of choice especially on the surf scene, but since the early 90's, crystal methamphetamine or 'Ice' has flooded this Pacific chain of eight islands.

The majority of Hawaii's 1.4 million residents live on Oahu and the Big Island. Oahu is home to the state capital Honolulu. 'The 50th state' has the highest rate of crystal meth use in the entire nation. Unlike the mainland U.S., here people from all walks of life use meth. Meth is not confined to the ghetto. Hawaiian slang for meth is 'Batu' which means 'Ice'. It's a powerful synthetic stimulant produced from ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, a drug that can be found in cold and allergy medicines. It has a pretty much instant effect. Meth users experience an intense rush which can keep them up for days and frequently leads to paranoia and psychosis. The meth increases energy and users often exhibit repetitive obsessive behaviour.

 

In the late 80's, Asian gangs used Hawaii as a testing ground for meth and the drug quickly became popular. Crystal meth abuse costs the Hawaiian economy $500,000,000. In Hawaii, the U.S. DEA leads the fight against the drug. Ice consumes more law enforcement resources than all the other drugs combined. 51% of cases here are directly related to methamphetamine. A conviction for trafficking crystal meth can carry a 20 year prison sentence and a 20 million dollar fine! But with huge profits at stake, many are willing to risk life behind bars.

 

The Hawaiian islands are experiencing a meth epidemic. In recent years, the state has seen a shift in the drug supply chain from Asia to Mexico. In the early 1990's, it was coming over from Asia, but in the mid 90's it started to transform and the Mexican drug cartels started to take over. Simply because it's easier to traffic Ice across the U.S. - Mexican border than to smuggle it from Asia. Mexican drug gangs now control over 70% of the U.S meth market.

In 2011, drugs worth $531,285,893 were seized. The majority of drugs are imported, but the mainland is nearly 2,500 miles away, so dealers demand sky high prices. Honolulu international airport being the main gateway for drugs into the Hawaiian islands, approximately 90% of meth seized on Oahu arrives here. One of the other ways traffickers like to bring narcotics in, is through cargo. The Hawaiian islands import 85% of everything they need so drugs are easy to hide. Between 2007 and 2010, seizures of Ice increased by 89% and wholesale prices dropped, reflecting an increased availability of the drug.

 

Hawaii's Pacific Ocean location is 2,500 miles to the nearest drug production hub. Shipping narcotics to the island chain, Mexican cartels can make huge profits. In the state capital Honolulu, dealers sell at vastly inflated prices.

With drugs infused into Hawaiian society, and not everyone able to afford rehab, one of Hawaii's leading judges is transforming the judicial system; Judge Steven Alm, 'Hope' probation creator,

''Of the U.S., Hawaii is always one of the lower states for violent crime, usually in the bottom 10, but Hawaii is almost always in the top 5 for property crimes, such as thefts, burglaries, and stealing from tourists cars, and we are convinced that is because of our large drug problem. I would estimate between 80 to 85% of the cases in court involve drugs or alcohol''.

At the original sentencing, the judge has the choice of either sending somebody to prison for a number of years or putting them on probation - supervision in the community. The problem is that on regular probation, when people have tested positive for drugs there are no real consequences. 58.8% of men arrested in Honolulu tested positive for meth in 2011.

 

Judge Alm is changing the probation system so that there are direct and immediate consequences for drug use. If you test positive on probation for drugs on the 'Hope' probation scheme, you will go to jail that day (for a few days). Currently there are about 2000 felony probationers in 'Hope'.

''We had top quality research done on the programme, people in 'Hope' who are on the drug test hotline (random checks for those on probation) tested positive 72% less often than the people on regular probation; they got arrested for new crimes 55% less often than those on regular probation; and they got their probation revoked and were sent to prison 53% less often''.

 

With fewer people going to prison, the program is saving the state a hundred million dollars and helping to transform the lives of people who may otherwise have been homeless, in jail, or dead. While the demand exists and big profits can be made, there will however always be people willing to risk jail to supply 'Drugs Inc. Hawaii'.

Cocaine cues and dopamine

In 2006 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, a set of experiments was conducted to discover the true nature of cocaine addiction. Mexican born scientist, Prof Nora Volkow, is one of America's leading specialists on drug addiction. She's on a personal mission to understand the cause of addiction, driven by memories of her alcoholic uncle. ''He was rejected by the system...not even being accepted from the perspective of him having a medical disease''.

 

Prof. Nora Volkow

What fascinates Prof Volkow is the nature of cocaine addiction. As late as the 1980's, many scientists and politicians believed cocaine was non-addictive, and she wants to prove them wrong.

 

She took fMRI images of people under the influence of cocaine to try and identify areas of the brain, and the proteins in the brain that get disrupted by use of drugs in people that lose control of their drug intake at the expense of everything else in their life.

 

 

Her images showed that cocaine changes the brains structure. ''Repeated exposure produces changes in the way that the brain gets connected, and functions that result in pathological behaviour'', and this is why she argues in favour of it being regarded as a disease.

 

Trying to understand the nature of this disease, Prof Volkow scanned hundreds of users and ex-users. While scanning the brains of ex-users she noticed an irregularity. When subjects were discussing cocaine their dopamine levels rose. She argues that you could make a case that people become addicted to the lifestyle of cocaine use. Their brains have started to respond to the lifestyle, that is; the environment, their friends, and their situations. Her team later conducted experiments to test the theory.

 

Subjects were placed in an fMRI scanner and shown images of people preparing and snorting lines of cocaine. Viewing the images resulted in a significant increase of dopamine levels in the brains of the subjects who were current users.

 

The neurological effect of cocaine

''When we exposed them with stimulants that have been linked with drugs, what we observe is a significant increase in dopamine signalling in those areas of the brain that drive the motivation of drug behaviour''.

 

Prof Volkow's research showed that cocaine is so addictive that simply showing images of its use is enough to increase a subjects dopamine levels and lead them into a relapse.

 

Law enforcement treats cocaine users as criminals rather than people suffering from a disease. Over the past ten years, the government in the U.S. has repeatedly slashed funding for drug rehabilitation programmes and increased funding for prisons. The result: a million Americans are imprisoned on drug related charges, costing the American taxpayer 12.5 billion dollars per year.

 

Prof Volkow believes that the government's approach of criminalising and imprisoning drug use without proper treatment is misguided and statistics support her claims. Cocaine users are likely to relapse after leaving prison and end up re-incarcerated with 40% of cocaine users and 77% of crack convicts being re-offenders.
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Volkow, N.D., Wang, G.J., Telang, F., Fowler, J.S., Logan, J., Childress, A.R., Jayne, M., Ma, Y., Wong, C.J. (2006). Cocaine cues and dopamine in dorsal striatum: mechanism of craving in cocaine addiction. Journal of Neuroscience 14; 26 (24): 6583-8

Some Principles that allow me to understand Self-Injury.

With 12,000 people attending Irish hospital emergency departments in 2010 due to self-harm (Ring, 2011), it is important that ways of alleviating its prevalence in society are addressed. Furthermore, it is believed that cases which present to hospital are only the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately there is no panacea to ameliorate the suffering of the person who self-harms, and it would be naïve of me to assume that the following principles alone would be enough to suffice for an approach to understanding and responding to self-injury. Nevertheless, they stand out amongst others.

        
The first of these principles is that 'the injury is not the problem'. You would be by-passing a host of problems if it was only concern for the person’s actual injury. Having an erroneous assumption that the injury should be the focal point of attention would only be delivering a lump of verbal refuse to the client.

             

There should instead be a focus on their feelings before their behaviours. Most of the 'problems' with self-injury are nothing to do with the person who hurts themselves. While the scars may be psychologically detrimental to them, underlying deep seated issues should be regarded as a lot more insidious. The injury has to be viewed as an outward expression of their inner pain.