inamorato: almost comments

1.11.06

almost comments

so, jen left a comment on my last post and it raised a lot of great questions and points and my response to it would be way too long to post in the comments, so i'll respond here.

jen said:

how do we prevent these types of crimes? I was the victim of an assault and it happened completely out of the blue without provocation and by a complete stranger, but within a relatively safe environment. I'm the last person to advocate carrying any kind of weapon, but it seems like the only way to keep one's self safe, although at the expense of seriously harming the attacker, or someone you mistakenly think is attacking you. The main problem with any weapon is that if it is used to threaten the attacker they have the opportunity to take it away and use it on you, and if you use it right away, you risk injuring or killing innocent people.

Nothing in the attacker's past that I was aware of indicated a propensity towards violence or alcoholism, but he was intoxicated on alcohol at the time. Unfortunately I think it's a bit late to re-criminalize alcohol, but considering how much dammage it does to society at large it really shouldn't be so readily available in seemingly limitless quantities. I would support much more regulation, but you'll never hear anything like that because binge drinking is such a huge industry. Let it be rare, precious and cherished, not taken for granted abused for fun or because it tastes good. Some people will, of course, just like some people will always smoke crack, but those people have serious, and most likely obvious problems that can be addressed and dealt with if there are facilities and programs in place to treat them. You cannot completely wipe out any particular drug, people need drugs to get by in a world that's so fucked up, but as a society it's our duty to minimize the harm they do and prevent abuse, but we are not even trying to prevent binging on this very harmful drug, and that's when it is a particular danger to others, and thus society.

so what can we do? maybe if there was a person charged with some crime while being drunk on the news every single night people would change their minds? would that even be enough, considering the size of the global industry today? I feel rather helpless trying to make positive changes with so much weight behind an institution of great harm.

the first question, how do we prevent these types of crimes? you've stated that in your case the attacker showed no prior signs of bing at risk to attack someone, but the majority of cases out there involve a perpetrator who has shown some signs of heading in the wrong direction. in my case, this was a friend of mine, someone i knew very well. at times we were inseparable and i can tell you that spanning the entire time i knew him, i also knew that something was different about him. i knew he had a deep sadness, i knew he was emotionally stunted and had such an incredible inability to function normally in social situations. it was clear, very clear there was something wrong with him. to the point that i had to stop hanging out with him. it wasn't necessarily that i felt unsafe, it just got to be such a chore hanging out with someone who had so many emotional problems. a few years went by and we sort of ran into each other again. he seemed to have his shit together, and within a couple weeks of hanging out with each other again, he'd raped me.

he had sought help from many places many times for his problems and was offered no real help. most mental health professionals put patients on drugs without so much as listening to why they might be feeling so awful. they don't focus on the root of the problem. people don't just wake up one day, sad and fucked up out of the blue. something causes it, and if you find the cause and treat the cause, the symptoms stop occurring. it happens to the best of us. i know i've made some horrible, horrible mistakes in my life because i wasn't feeling particularly sane, happy or functional.

i'm not suggesting that giving people help for their emotional problems will prevent all crime, but you'd be naive to think it wouldn't prevent some. in my case, i feel it was preventable. i feel that the man who attacked me could have had some good help and been a contributing, sane member of society no problem. but that didn't happen, because the criminal justice system in my country is 100% reactive, not proactive.

as far as alcohol is concerned, that's just a cop-out. a) i've been just as drunk as the next guy many many times and i still know the difference between right and wrong. b) there are hundreds of countries in the world that lack the alcoholism problems canada and the USA do. and they have no drinking age. children are given glasses of wine with lunch and dinner in italy, spain all over south america, etc. there is no sudden need to drink two years of your life away when you turn 19 or 21 because you've been drinking for years and it's no big deal.

i totally agree that wiping out any one drug is futile. it will never happen. as long as people live on earth and there is still arable land, people will do drugs. alcohol, heroin, crack, meth, whatever. it will always be with us and what really needs to happen is the legalization and regulation of all illicit drugs. regulation of these drugs will prevent, on a massive scale, overdosing, binging, impure drugs, disease and most of all, the crime associated with the illegality of all of these drugs will cease, our prisons would virtually empty and prostitution would be minimal.

thanks for your comment jen, it's good to talk about this shit.

Technorati Tags: prison, crime, drugs, alcohol, law

6 comment(s):

maybe it's the combination of excessive alcohol and mental health issues that is so volatile. in my situation, the guy was unable to hold down a regular job at the time of the trial, so was let off with no penalty other than the criminal record (and possibly another charge of failure to appear), but he indicated mild depression was the reason he was having trouble at that time. I honestly can't imagine how someone like him would act the way he did unless he was drunk, there was just no other trigger for the aggression, but an at the time of the attack un-diagnosed depression could have been the catalyst that made it all possible. The clear majority of assault and sexual assault cases involve alcohol, so I think there is reason to believe there is a solid link between how some people's moods, perceptions and judgement change when abusing alcohol. Certainly it's not the reason these things happen, but it is the key enabler in a lot of the cases that would be the easiest to prevent the crime. Getting to the root of people's issues is always the best solution, but unless they are millionaires treatment is unavailable, as you've said even those that seek help voluntarily aren't even given the help they need, and go on to commit crimes.

By Anonymous, at 1.11.06

About 5% of people charged with sexual assault commit suicide, so you may be on to something. Depression and other mental disorders should be treated more seriously with mandatory treatment programs that are proven effective.

By Anonymous, at 2.11.06

you may still know the difference between right and wrong but most of the thousands of people getting behind the wheel of a car drunk every day do not. they know it's wrong and dangerous and illegal to do it, but once drunk they think that driving is the right decision to make. regulating alcohol so that binge drinking cannot be a form of acceptable entertainment is a must if we are to make any real change to the number of crimes committed when people are drunk. how can any amount of education or psychological treatment save someone from making bad decisions when their judgement is so badly impaired? the only way to avoid making those bad decisions is to not impair your judgement that severely. education programs about alcohol need to focus on the dangers of excessive drinking, not just the classic danger of drinking too often and becoming an alcoholic. other drugs need to be equalized, making them available, but without creating an industry out of the production of them, in other words small amounts produced by individuals would be legal but volume production would be outlawed so demand can be satisfied and all profit removed from the black market. When there's choice AND education people will make responsible decisions, but when alcohol is our only socially acceptable and legal choice for a recreational drug, we are bound to run into problems, regardless of what regulation exists.

By Anonymous, at 2.11.06

we can try and regulate drinking all we want, but it'll still happen. i agree, though, that far too many people choose to drink and drive, whether they know the difference between right and wrong. it's just too easy to convince oneself that one has the skills to drive while impaired. i'd like to see in-car breathalizers that prevent the car from starting if the blood/alcohol level is over the legal limit. we make seatbelts and car insurance mandatory, surely we can make it mandatory to have your car equipped with something like that. it's far too frequent and lethal to wait around for people to become educated in the dangers of drinking and driving. besides, i know plenty of people who know what the dangers are extremely well and still do it.

By Courtney, at 2.11.06

I drive better drunk...((runs)) hic ((falls))

By Anonymous, at 7.11.06

hahah

By Courtney, at 7.11.06

1.11.06

almost comments

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