Response to NY SHU bill

From: daniel hazen

Date: 12/16/2007

To: prisonersolidarity@yahoogroups.com

Dear Friends,

Mark Twain reminds us that "if your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like nails". While the human "service" tool has undoubted efficacy in particular situations, like the hammer, it can also do great harm when used inappropriately. All the problems of those who are vulnerable, exploited, excluded, or labeled are not nails. They do no always "need" human "services". More often, they "need" justice, income, and community.

Human "services" professionals /agencies focus on deficiencies, call them "needs" and have "expert" skills in giving each perceived deficiency a label. The negative effects of this diagnostic process have been thoroughly explored in the literature regarding labeling theory.

Another negative effect of the use of the human "service" tool is its effect on public budgets. It is clear to every elected official that the public purse is limited. Contemporary legislative process is mainly about the division of that purse. To give more to one "activity" (defense) usually means giving less to another (education). Therefore, a realistic approach to public policy and expenditure always requires an understanding of trade-offs - who or what gets less as something else gets more.

The process occurs between major expenditure categories such as education, highways, defense, medicine, and agriculture, etc. Trade-offs also take place within each of these categories.

The same process occurs within the human "services" budget. Here, however, it is less well understood because the basic competition for the limited funds available for the "disadvantaged" is between the human "service" system and cash income for labeled people. "Service" system lobbyists and advocates see the competition for limited resources as a "jockeying" between various "service" providers and systems. They rarely recognize or acknowledge, however, that the net effect of their lobbying is to limit cash income for those they call "needy" and increase the budget and incomes of "service" programs, providers and agency's.

There are many ways of "helping" prisoners (prison/psychiatric). One is to impose what you "think" is "best" for them. This is the typical approach of well-meaning "experts" and "professionals" who are members of the criminal (in) justice and "mental health" bureaucracies.

Another way of "helping" prisoners (prison/psychiatric) is thru charity. Some use charity in prison/psychiatric institutions to provide "relief" of suffering and to express compassion. But there are problems with charity: It communicates pity rather than shared outrage and can romanticize the prisoner (prison/psychiatric). Charity sometimes relieves the sufferings of prisoners (prison/psychiatric), but it does not alter the basic conditions responsible for the sufferings/torture.

A third way of supporting prisoners (prison/psychiatric) is to become their ally. These are some of the qualities of a prisoner (prison/psychiatric) ally as compared to those of the "charitable" person/agency:

. The Charitable person/agency does not think of altering the prisoner's (prison/psychiatric) persistent need for support. The Prisoner (prison/psychiatric) must always depend on the good will of the charitable.
. The prisoner (prison/psychiatric) ally supports the oppressed prisoner (prison/psychiatric) become empowered to change his/her situation.

. The Charitable person/agency acts out of guilt and pities the prisoner (prison/psychiatric) who is seen as a "poor soul".
. The Prisoner (prison/psychiatric) ally treats the prisoner (prison/psychiatric) as an ally in change, sharing anger about prison and psychiatric oppression.

. The Charitable person/agency might thin the prisoner's (prison/psychiatric) situation comes from the fault within the prisoner (prison/psychiatric).
. The Prisoner (prison/psychiatric) ally identifies social and cultural forces that contribute to the cause of prisoner's (prison/psychiatric) oppression.

. The Charitable Person often has a "plan" for the prisoner's (prison/psychiatric), who is not regarded as a peer. (experience in the systemics prison/psychiatric)
. The Prisoner (prison/psychiatric) ally and the prisoner strategize together, mutually (no exclusion of experiences/ideas); no one must be "thanked"/"honored" and "awarded".

. The Charitable person has his/her/agency's own view of what the prisoner (prison/psychiatric) must feel.
. The prisoner (prison/psychiatric) ally understands the prisoner's (prison/psychiatric) experiences (w/o exclusion) thru the prisoner's (prison/psychiatric) own word's.

. The charitable person/agency has easy access to criminal (in)justice and "mental health" bureaucracies.
. The Prisoner (prison/psychiatric) ally often has a stormy relationship with the bureaucracies, because s/he is perceived as threatening to the persons who hold "power" in the systems.

Criminal (In)Justice/Prison/ Brainwashing Psychiatric Parallels:

Prison Mental Hospital
Thought Reform Center Psychiatric Center
Interrogator/Brain washer Psychiatrist
Prisoner Mental Patient/Psych Inmate
Political Model Medical Model
Crimes Symptoms
"Thought Crimes" Delusions
Denial of Guilt Lack of Insight
Imprisonment Involuntary Commitment
Punishment Treatment
Interrogation Psychotherapy
Humiliation Stigmatization (Diagnosis)
Isolation Restraint & Seclusion
(Physical & Chemical)
Softening up process Somatic (physical) Treatment
Sleep/Food Deprivation Psychiatric Drugs
Sensory Deprivation Electroshock (Shock/ECT)
Confusion/Helplessness Disorientation & Dependency
Suggestibility Amenability to Psychotherapy
Confession of Guilt Admission of Mental Illness
(insight)
Conversion Cure
Obedience Cooperation/Compliance
Work Occupational Therapy
Study Groups Group Therapy
Re-Education Rehabilitation
by: Leonard Roy Frank - Influencing Minds " A Reader in Quotations

The bill is full of medical model language and "treatment".
The SHU is a disgusting place for all human beings, I support the measures to end such torture for all people, but I shall not marginalize my capacity and or the "marketing" of my "lack of capacity" in the name of "mental health".

Punishing and or/treating people through either or both systems without addressing the problems at the core is not the solution. Rather, it perpetuates and exacerbates the problems.

In Freedom

Daniel

Iolmisha@cs.com wrote: Please email Speaker Silver this message. His email address is speaker@assembly.state.ny.us

Make New York more Humane for the Holidays
Enact the SHU bill

People with psychiatric disabilities are suffering
in the solitary confinement cells of our prisons.
This holiday season, bring treatment to New York's
vulnerable prisoners. Pass A.9342

Endorsements:

* Rico (El Santo)
* Idriss Stelley Foundation (http://www.myspace.com/ISFOUNDATION)
* Education Not Incarceration SF Chapter
* SF_Village_Voice Community Radio

Please add your endorsements !

As you know, the Governor and legislature have reached an agreement
on the SHU bill, and the Senate passed the amended bill in July.
However, before the Governor can sign the legislation into law, the
Assembly must pass the amended bill (A.9342/S.6422). Please take
action this week to urge Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to call the
legislature back into session before December 31, 2007, and pass the
amended SHU bill.

What you can do:

· Send Speaker Silver a letter. We have attached a letter that you
can use as a template (see below). Just copy it onto your agency's
letterhead, make any needed revisions, and put it in the mail TODAY.

· Call Silver's office. His Albany number is. His NYC number is/1420.

· Fax Silver's office at:

· Ask your friends and co-workers to join in this campaign.

Let's remind the Assembly of all the support for this legislation.
It is crucial that we get the bill passed before the end of the year.

Thanks for your support!

Call Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver

After 5 years of tireless advocacy, the SHU bill that will allow New
York State to provide more appropriate and humane in-prison
residential and treatment services for prisoners with severe
psychiatric disabilities is only one step away from the Governor's
desk.

The bill will also ensure that correctional officers are provided
with adequate mental health training and will significantly improve
prison safety conditions across New York State.

Help us to urge the NYS Assembly to return this month to pass A.9342
before year's end!

CALL ASSEMBLYMAN SILVER TOMORROW

at

and leave the following message:

"I'm a registered voter from (your locality) calling

to urge Speaker Silver to assure Assembly passage of A.9342 before
year's end

to improve prison mental health care and safety conditions in New
York!"

Help end the suffering of people in prison with psychiatric
disabilities!

Daniel Hazen
The Mental Patients Liberation Alliance, Inc.
Mobile:
24 - Hour Telephone Line:
. State and National Network
. 24-Hour Advocacy & Information Telephone Line
. Self-Help, Mutual Support & Advocacy