Exploring Drug Treatment with an Abolitionist Lens

• In Event: Roundtable: Supporting Early Stage Penal Abolition Researchers

Abstract

Funding objectives, policy entanglements, and the criminalization of drug use perpetuate standardized systems of care that do not take into account the diversity of individual problems with drug use, acting as barriers to social capital building and realization of self-fulfillment in life. As abolitionists, we advocate legalization of all drugs, and with such a transformation, we wish to see the disintegration of an entrenching “treatment industrial complex” within the criminal justice system, which is moving to replace incarceration with forced treatment. The questions of why drug users seek treatment, who needs treatment, and what treatment means will be examined from an abolitionist viewpoint. The preliminary findings of the benefits and downfalls of “disruptively innovative” treatment ideas invite discussion on how community organized detox services and social recovery models focused on individuals rather than programs could serve as the seeds for abolitionist growth toward more humane and successful treatment provider systems.

Authors

• Denise Woodall, University of Georgia

• Miriam Boeri, Bentley University