People Against Prisons Aotearoa

Abolitionist Demand 6: Support publicly-funded treatment-on-demand programmes for addiction and mental health in emancipatory, non-carceral settings.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

As it currently stands, the New Zealand government often treats drug addiction and mental illness as criminal justice issues, rather than health issues. This is demonstrated, in part, by the findings of the 2010 “Health in Justice” report conducted by the National Health Commission. It found that 89% of incarcerated people have suffered from substance abuse sometime in their lives, 60% of incarcerated people have a personality disorder, 52% experience anxiety and psychotic mood disorders, and 20% had been thinking a lot about committing suicide.^[1]

In other words, people who struggle with addiction^[2] and mental health issues^[3] are significantly more likely to find themselves in prison, where they do not have access to adequate mental healthcare.^[4] Incarceration does not help people deal with these kinds of issues.^[5] Instead, it further deprives a person of their liberty and places an already-vulnerable person at a high risk of sexual and other assault.^[6]  

Those who need care deserve publicly-funded, treatment-on-demand programmes that treat them with humanity and dignity. However, mental health and addiction services in New Zealand, as they currently stand, fall woefully short. In part, that is due to the carceral nature of some services, where people are sometimes kept against their will and are prevented from leaving.^[7] A 15 year study of 145,000 patients demonstrates that an open door policy, where people can come and go as they please, is more beneficial to people dealing with depression, anxiety, or psychosis than keeping them locked up.^[8]

In a shocking account, Jess McAllen details the humiliating and degrading practices occurring in New Zealand’s mental health and addiction treatment system.^[9] One woman McAllen spoke to recounted being stripped by male nurses and locked in a seclusion room for days at a time.^[10] Seclusion, a form of solitary confinement that even the Ministry of Health recognises as inhumane, is also used four times more often against Māori patients.^[11]

This reporting, and this demand, only touch the surface of all the work that needs to be done into the dehumanising carceral practices in New Zealand mental health and addiction services. No Pride in Prisons nonetheless firmly holds that it is no solution whatsoever to transfer people who need help from a prison to a mental health facility that is a prison in all but name. Mental health treatment needs to be fully funded and restructured so as to recognise that mental illness is always a social, not an individual, issue.

^[1] National Health Committee, Health in Justice: Kia Piki te Ora, Kia Tika! – Improving the Health of Prisoners and their Families and Whānau: He Whakapiki i te Ora o ngā Mauhere me ō Rātou Whānau, (Wellington: Ministry of Health, 2010).

^[2] Devon Indig, Craig Gear and Kay Wilhelm, Comorbid Substance Use Disorders and Mental Health Disorders Among New Zealand Prisoners, (Wellington: Department of Corrections, 2016).

^[3] National Health Committee, Health in Justice: Kia Piki te Ora, Kia Tika! – Improving the Health of Prisoners and their Families and Whānau: He Whakapiki i te Ora o ngā Mauhere me ō Rātou Whānau, (Wellington: Ministry of Health, 2010).

^[4] Helen Brasting, “Mental Health Treatment and Services in NZ Prisons are Inadequate,” JustSpeak, 17 September, 2013. http://justspeak.org.nz/mental-health-treatment-and-services-in-nz-prisons-are-inadequate/.

^[5] Roger Brook, Flying Blind: How the Justice System Perpetuates Crime and the Corrections Department Fails to Correct, (Wellington: ADAC, 2011).

^[6] Allen J. Beck et al., Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011-12, (United States: U.S. Department of Justice, 2013), 7.

^[7] Jess McAllen, “Mental Health Patients Are Being Locked Up When They Shouldn’t Be,” The Wireless, 9 February 2016. http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/mental-health-patients-are-being-locked-up-when-they-shouldn-t-be.

^[8] Christian G Huber et al., “Suicide Risk and Absconding in Psychiatric Hospitals With and Without Open Door Policies: a 15 Year, Observational Study,” The Lancet Psychiatry (2016). http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(16)30168-7/fulltext.

^[9] Jess McAllen, “Mental Health Patients Are Being Locked Up When They Shouldn’t Be,” The Wireless, 9 February 2016. http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/mental-health-patients-are-being-locked-up-when-they-shouldn-t-be.

^[10] Ibid.

^[11] Ibid.