There is no doubt that
recovery services and the recovery community do an invaluable service
in a Scioto County wracked by an opioid epidemic. Those working in
recovery should be praised for their tireless work. They establish
efficient relationships with clients who desperately need their
assistance.
Yet, there is a dark side
of treating people with substance abuse disorders. As some of these
patients leave their facilities and go back into society, not only do
they take with them a past of drug abuse but also a history of
aggressive and violent crimes. They enter back into local
neighborhoods showing no signs of criminal abatement.
Thus, these past offenders
attempt to insulate themselves in environments where their criminal
behaviors can continue and even flourish. They have friends who now
work in substance abuse positions, friends who sympathize with their
plight – and some of these friends actually facilitate the
parolees' further offenses. The criminals, undoubtedly, take
advantage – they successfully use a system meant to better society.
Within our communities, we
have those who readily feed, house, and begin intimate relationships
with people still working through their addictions. Although these
Samaritan counselors and employees may have good intentions, they can
bring people who have exhibited violent intentions and chronic
criminal behaviors into peaceful neighborhoods and enable them to
continue their criminal activities.
Some of these offenders
commit serious crimes such as assault, robbery, drug violations,
harassment, and even rape and murder. With the aid of an unwitting or
knowing accomplice, a person still struggling with addiction can, and
often does, continue to commit activities that endanger all members
of a peaceful community.
As an analogy, it is fair
to ask if a corrections officer or prison counselor, a trained public
servant, be permitted to allow violent offenders still in the process
of rehabilitation and fresh out of prison into their homes as
permanent residents? One would certainly question the logic and the
reason for doing that. And, again, what risks would that pose to the
community?
Shouldn't any recovery
process committed to positive change help a patient establish
independence? Encouraging dependence does not help rehabilitate
people with substance abuse and a long history of criminal behavior.
For people with a criminal past, it can actually enable them to
re-establish old patterns of harassment and further facilitate their
criminal activities.
The embracement offered by
the recovery community can be a detriment to the rest of society.
Instead of providing people an environment for choosing to move
forward, such a caress instead can encourage misbehaviors. Shielding
chronic offenders hurts us all. When they time and again sink
into old habits, we all suffer – health problems, financial
distress, and criminal activity all increase.
Personal homes are not
recovery residences or half-way houses, yet, in our county, for
reasons unknown to me, people released from prison and still
struggling with addiction find refuge in many private residences of
those who work in recovery. If such a person is not rehabilitating
himself or herself and, instead, continuing to be a detriment to
society, that is complicit to criminal activity, and it is
counterproductive to that subject's regaining a normal state of
health and mind.
Some past offenders in
Scioto County do not attempt to secure jobs and become good citizens.
And, some of these same people reject sobriety and again become part
of the drug culture, all of which results in a tremendous risk to
innocent citizens. Those past offenders who exhibit aggressive
behaviors should be charged for their bullying actions.
When a person with
substance abuse disorders breaks the covenant of seeking to achieve
productive functioning in the family, at work, and in society and he
or she returns to a life of elicit activities, that person no longer
wishes to benefit Scioto County communities. Instead, he or she uses
every “break” from law enforcement, every assistance from
recovery, and every “second chance” from the community to
continue a reckless, dangerous, and unlawful life.
In
addition, a large percentage of those in recovery have a dual
diagnosis – both a substance abuse problem and a mental health
issue such as depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, or anxiety.
According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 45 percent
carry this burden. As part of their commitment to wellness, these
people must seek extensive professional help far exceeding that
within the expertise of a drug counselor or a recovery worker. In
other words, people with dual diagnoses need help beyond that of
typical dependency employees – many require psychiatric help and
proper medication.
The Scioto County recovery
community should fight a lethal tendency to be dependent upon itself.
I have seen cases where interdependency among abuse clientele feeds
upon itself. So-called co-dependencies or “relationship addictions”
form and maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally
destructive and/or abusive. Co-dependency can affect a spouse, a
parent, a sibling, a friend, or co-worker.
Everyone in every
community in Scioto County is guaranteed life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. No one should have to tolerate criminal
activities. God knows it is difficult enough to overcome obstacles to
this guarantee without the threat of those with long rap sheets who
abuse the systems of justice and recovery. These chronic abusers give
both of these institutions – recovery and corrections – a bad
name as they generate public distrust in the law and seed serious
doubts of the effectiveness of treatment for drug addiction.
Also, it is my belief that
those involved in recovery should divorce themselves from personal
associations with people who constantly revert to further drug abuse
and criminal behavior. In Scioto County, this is not always the case.
Some offenders get out of prison and continue to seek out the
criminal element. They do not make a clean break from the criminal
element. And, unfortunately, some of these sober people, for whatever
reason, remain indifferent to the damage of a repeat offender and
provide that criminal a setting to continue a cycle of abuse and
crime.
When the recovery
community insulates people despite their unwillingness to
rehabilitate themselves, they become complicit in that person's
misbehavior and in his or her crimes. To what degree is a matter for
the courts. But, the direct influence of their complicity cannot be
denied.
Scioto County communities
need to face this obvious and dreadful shortcoming and take a stand
against those criminals and abusers who are not willing to become
decent citizens and, who, instead, continue to use drugs and to
assault, harass, and bully others.
The sad truth is that many
neighbors of these thugs are frightened to confront these bad people.
They fear bodily harm to themselves and their families, and they fear
acts of vandalism and burglary. Many of these intimidated souls will
not even call authorities when threatened or when they become victims
of crime. Imagine living in fear in your own neighborhood – in my
case, a neighborhood in which I have dwelled 45 years.
And, when crimes by these
repeat offenders do occur, some overly sympathetic people here
unwittingly condone their offenses by blaming it on their addiction
and their desperate need for “a fix.” They conclude that the
cause of the offender's misbehavior is intoxication or addiction, and
not criminal intent – “They're just addicts doing what they do.”
They blame the substance for the crime. But the truth is when anyone
time after time commits repeated offenses, that person denies
themselves rehabilitation – they lack any sense of belonging
and responsibility in a community already riddled with crime and
addiction. They, not the substance (substances), are to blame.
A rehabilitation or
recovery effort should not attempt to promote a community within a
community – a place where questions arise about the necessity of
following laws and community standards – conditions required by
peaceful, law-abiding citizens. Help for serious people with drug
disorders is needed; collusion with repeat offenders who use the
system is not.
Left to a cycle of drug
abuse and unfettered criminal behavior, a growing cancer spawned by
indifference blights once-good communities in Scioto County. And,
unfortunately it predominately spreads in common grounds, not in
upscale neighborhoods afforded superior protection. This malignant
growth becomes part of an ID of hopelessness and despair while it
proliferates with passive acceptance.
We must fight like hell to
stop the spread of illegal actions before they choke our once
child-friendly streets and spread poison and crime without any fear
of resistance. Resignation and indifference do not deter repeat
offenders. Individuals in blighted neighborhoods must stand against
hate and oppression.
The single best indicator
of whether an ex-offender will become a re-offender is the length and
seriousness of his or her rap sheet. If these criminals and bullies
behavior is condoned and even reinforced by the recovery community,
no place will be safe. No place will guarantee life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
We have recently employed
cameras, security lights, and signs to deter these aggressive
individuals. We have taken these extra steps to maintain our safety
as we face the threats of thugs and those who house them without
remorse. We have diligently called the police because of recent
violent disturbances on our street – gunshots never before heard on
our peaceful block.
Now, we have filed an
order of protection at the Scioto County Courthouse and paid to have
it personally delivered because we are tired of looking out our
windows when we hear gunshots and fights and distractions, and being
told: “Go back in your house, old motherfucker. I'll come over
there and beat your ass” – a comment made to me by an ex-con as I
responded to a gunshot and employed absolutely no provocation while
looking out my storm door.
Unreformed thugs will
continue to act like thugs as long as they are enabled. We choose to
stand against them despite fears of threats, vandalism, and assault.
We do so remembering these words of the famous Indian monk and yogi …
“Some
people try to be tall by cutting off the heads of others.”
– Paramahansa
Yogananda
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