Written in December 2021, the following article was first published in the Winter 2022 edition of the Virginia Defender (67). To find other stories in the Winter 2022 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For the full web catalog, see their full Issues page.
Within the context of a prison, i.e. penal facility, mental health both manifests and displays itself in many forms.
A lot of Us who enter into the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) come from the lower socioeconomic strata of society and arrive with some form of existing psychosocial issues whether they hide or conceal themselves behind experiences with various kinds of abuse, from substance abuse disorder to sexual assault.
Mental health issues and ‘conduct’ is now being kriminalized and placed into that context. The state and its agents respond to someone with mental health issues as if they were a kriminal. This triggers the full weight of the oppressive and repressive state. This also triggers more physical abuse, solitary confinement, verbal abuse, beatings, manhandling, disrespect, and disregard by a people who are often untrained, overworked, underpaid and ill-equipped to deal with mental illnesses.
Mental Health issues and “conduct” are now being kriminalized and placed into that context, and the responses of the state and its agents is to that of a kriminal and not someone with mental illness. This triggers the full weight of the oppressive and repressive state. This also triggers more abuse, brutalization, solitary confinement, verbal abuse, beatings, manhandling, disrespect and disregard by people who are often untrained, overworked, underpaid and ill-equipped to deal with such mental illness or mental health issues.
So, someone hearing voices, who is delusional, who might have PTSD, anger or rage issues, doesn’t take care of their hygiene, suffers paranoia, etc., becomes a “disciplinary problem” to be further controlled and repressed. Hidden away in segregation units, isolation units, placed into camera cells on suicide watch while stripped naked and clothed in suicide-prevention smocks, only to have their good time taken, sentences extended; while adding another layer of job security for the employees of the state.
Then, these same employees become resentful, hateful, and vindictive because of having or choosing to work in an already high-stress environment, and this isn’t what they signed up for. I’ve seen prison guards and prisoncrats commit some of the most vicious abusive acts against those who really needed proper medication or mental health treatment, only to then laugh and joke about it.
The flip side of this is that those of Us who came into the system after suffering from issues that We have never been diagnosed for, or those of Us who have grown up in communities or environments that are war zones, or where civil wars are raging over so-called “beefs,” territory, and/or markets connected to the underground economy, where we have witnessed or seen a body before the age of 13, have lost childhood friends to violence, have lost a parent(s) to the drug game or PIC.
It has always angered me to hear government officials and other agencies talk about military veterans coming back from foreign wars who have PTSD and/or other mental health issues because of what they have witnessed or experienced, and yet We got children in Our communities witnessing school shootings and street souljahs who have been involved in shooting wars, have buried friends and family members, or have bodies under their belts.
Ain’t no Red Cross for Us, ain’t no Veteran Affairs/Benefits for Us, ain’t no military courts for Us where convictions and felonies get deferred or mediated. The only thing left for Us are life sentences, extended aggravated sentences, and a slow death.
The same applies to those of Us who have fallen victim to the government campaigns of chemical warfare raging in Our communities. Don’t talk to Us about weapons of mass destruction hidden in the Middle East when we got Meth, Crack, Heroin and every illicit drug known to man saturating Our communities.
Where We grow up on it in order to escape the deplorable and harsh reality, We often have to find ways to either cope or escape, only to end up in the PIC. There, the side-effects or after-effects of years of drug abuse get misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all. There, they are looked upon as disciplinary issues, when in fact some of these youngsters have been traumatized in the ghetto colonies of amerika, have been smoking embalming fluid and experimenting with all kinds of chemical cocktails, or have suffered all kinds of mental health issues that go untreated.
If We aren’t cutting on Ourselves (some do), or aren’t threatening suicide (some do), We don’t get treatment. And if wWe’re fortunate enough to get into a program, many of them are racially and culturally biased and not grounded or rooted in a reality that many of Us come from or plan to return back to.
Many of these programs, including re-entry programs, do nothing to adequately prepare Us to return back to society to not be re-incarcerated. In some instances, in fact, it is just another way or scheme to get federal funding for programs that have no real substance.
Once again, many of Us are shoved through the cracks in the system, only to get trapped in the vicious cycle of catch, release, and return; caught in the cycle of carrying these mental health issues into Our communities, only to exacerbate already existing social ills and issues. A never ending cycle of Genocide!!!
FREE THE LAND!!
Shaka A. Shakur
14 December 2021
Shaka@ShakaShakur.Org
