addiction

 Once released back into their communities, formerly incarcerated people are expected to successfully acclimate back into society, yet they are often barred from the very assistance they need. Researchers are continually learning about what life is like after prison. A recent article in The New York Times details a new study that reveals how childhood trauma and mental illness hinder formerly incarcerated individuals’ ability to reconnect with loved ones, establish housing, and find work in the first year after prison.

The lead investigator of the study, sociologist Bruce Western, followed 122 former inmates in Massachusetts in their first year out of prison. He found that childhood trauma — particularly childhood violence — affected many of the participants in his study. Half of his participants also reported having a chronic condition and nearly two-thirds reported either a physical or mental health concern. In his recent book about the study, Homeward, Western argues that those who go to prison are much more likely to have challenges with addiction, mental illness, and physical disability. Western writes,

“Redressing the historic injustice of mass incarceration must do more that settle accounts with the past. Police, judges, and penal officials who acknowledge historic harms can begin to heal relationships and build trust with disadvantaged communities. But such efforts will feel hollow without real change. Under the harsh conditions of American poverty, the antidote to violence is not more punishment but restoring the institutions, social bonds, and well-being that enable order and predictability in daily life.”

In other words, for true change to occur, we must address the frequent connections between childhood trauma, mental health, and criminal involvement with adequate programming and treatment. At this point, the United States addresses crime with lengthy stints of incarceration, disentangling it from a complicated picture of people’s lived experiences with violence and trauma. As Western strongly asserts in the article,

“The whole ethical foundation of our system of punishment I think is threatened once you take into account the reality of people’s lives.”

Drugs are a necessary but not sufficient condition for addiction. Social scientists have long been interested in examining the social and environmental aspects of drug addiction.

A recent New York Times article discusses Columbia University Professor Carl Hart’s research on crack cocaine and methamphetamine addiction from his book “High Price.” When he started his research in the 1990s, Dr. Hart believed in the irresistibility of drugs, but findings from his experimental research to find a cure for drug dependency made him reevaluate his stance on addiction as purely a neurological phenomenon.

“Eighty to 90 percent of people who use crack and methamphetamine don’t get addicted,” said Dr. Hart, an associate professor of psychology. “And the small number who do become addicted are nothing like the popular caricatures.”

Both popular research and societal conceptions about drug addiction are missing a significant explanation for the cause of drug addiction. Dr. Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, supports Dr. Hart’s results:

Addiction always has a social element, and this is magnified in societies with little in the way of work or other ways to find fulfillment.

This “social element” could help explain why some people fall prey to drug addiction while others inexplicably escape its grasp. The idea of a social or structural element to addiction would cause a significant shift in the rhetoric of many substance abuse programs and wider societal discussions about drug use. The next step is to evaluate how large an effect environmental factors can have on addiction.

The reaction from other scientists has been mixed. No word yet on Dr. Hart’s next experiment, but I’m hoping it involves chocolate.