Getting Wrecked by Kimberly Sue

Author:Kimberly Sue
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520966406
Publisher: University of California Press

WHERE MEDICINE IS CONTRABAND

In stark opposition to the ethnographic observation that sharing medication can be an act of community or care, and in contrast to a clinician’s vantage point, in which medications are a means to palliate symptoms of withdrawal or cravings, the prison is focused on rooting out what they perceive as “contraband” medications such as buprenorphine-naloxone and punishing individuals for having it or using it.

In MCI-Framingham, possession of illicit drugs is one of several categories of inmate offenses. According to the inmate handbook, a Category 1 offense, the most severe type, includes the “introduction, distribution or transfer of any narcotic, controlled substance, illegal drug, unauthorized drug or drug paraphernalia.” The less severe Category 2 offense is for using. There are even punishments for simply thinking about committing a drug crime. Drugs present a perpetual problem for prison management. In the spring of 2013, the Massachusetts Department of Correction ordered a policy change that reflected the perceived magnitude of the problem: they introduced drug-sniffing dogs into the visitors’ waiting rooms at all the prison facilities. They argued that visitors—so-called “mules”—along with the mail, were the two main sources of drugs inside the prisons.

The letter to incarcerated individuals in the DOC facilities from the then commissioner, Luis Spencer, announcing the policy change, read: “The use of drugs many times is a root cause of criminal activity and continued drug use while incarcerated severely impacts your reentry efforts to return to the community better able to cope with the stressors of everyday life. . . . While we realize that visits are an extremely important part of your lives during your incarceration, the Department will not allow your reentry and treatment efforts to be derailed by illicit activities.”20

The Massachusetts Department of Correction began communicating when they would detect or locate drugs with the public via Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube videos. It was part of a coordinated attempt to project an image of security and effective policing around drugs (they would post photos of said contraband with the hashtags #drugsmuggling #greatjob).

In this way, medicines such as buprenorphine-naloxone in prison morphed into “contraband” to security staff; some medications become what Mary Douglas has called “matter out of place,” imbued with potential danger.21 As the Facebook posts illustrate, security staff actively police this medication (figure 5). The mere presence of these unpermitted substances, simply put, disrupts the order of things. The stated reason for such intense scrutiny is that it could cause fighting, with possible physical harm brought to incarcerated women or the guards. Yet, anecdotally, in jail settings such as Franklin County House of Correction in Massachusetts, where jail-based buprenorphine treatment programs exist, incidents and reports of bad behavior have actually gone down since the programs started.

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