Carceral Behavioral Therapy: The Criminalization of Addiction in Prison Recovery Treatment

• In Event: Intersections in Narrative and Visual Criminology: The Stories We Tell

Abstract

Evidence-based recovery groups act as key alternatives to traditional, spiritual-based groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA). One such program is SMART Recovery, or Self-Management and Recovery Training, which utilizes cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In 2002, SMART received a $1 million dollar grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) to initiate InsideOut: A SMART Recovery Correctional Program, which runs in over 200 prisons worldwide. While the program brings a non-religious alternative to people incarcerated, I consider, through narrative analysis, how program material (manuals, videos, promotional material) construct the “criminal addict” by pointing to “pathological thinking,” while disregarding structural aspects of crime and incarceration. As Corrections Today states, and of which is quoted in promotional material, “SMART addresses the offender’s problems where they begin: in the mind.” I then contrast the prison program from the primary program, which is ostensibly for non-incarcerated individuals, and find that the latter appeals more to individual choice rather than pathological thinking. I argue, then, that prison-based treatment creates a particular kind of addicted subject, the treatable carceral subject, which is conducive for ongoing criminalization and incarceration of people who use drugs.

Author

• Kevin Revier, SUNY Cortland