(forwarded with permission.  Robin)


>John -- fascinating history.  Do you mind if I pass it along to the Alcohol
>and Temperance History Group list?
>    The same "brainstorm" occurred to the District of Columbia government
in
>the mid-1960s, when they were under pressure from the Driver and Easter
>appeals court decisions and expected Powell to be decided the other way.
>They changed the sign over a wing of the District jail (in Lorton,
>Maryland??) to something like "rehabilitation centre", and gave the guards
a
>new title and new uniforms. This little tidbit is in Dan Beauchamp's
>dissertation,  "Precarious Politics: Alcoholism and Public Policy", 1973.
>    There is a footnote to Marshall's opinion on Powell vs. Texas in 1968
>that says something about how ill-defined "treatment" is in our field, that
>it could just mean changing the sign over the wing of a jail. Until I read
>Beauchamp's dissertation, I thought he was writing hypothetically.  But he
>wasn't.  Robin
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: John French <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: den 12 juli 2000 15:37
>Subject: The Legislation of Morality - Robinson v State of California
>
>
>>Here's a too long history lesson in case anyone is
>>interested.
>>
>>Troy Duster wrote a great book in the 1960s about how
>>morality can be legislated, using the California civil
>>commitment law and the resulting "CRC" - CA Rehab Commission
>>as the example. This was the 1st of 2 major state's
>>mandating treatment for heroin addicts. The 2nd was New York
>>State, with its Rockefeller Law, which formed the NACC in
>>1967.
>>
>>Robinson v California was the test case (in 1961),
>>contesting whether CA had the right to hold an addict
>>against his will for an indeterminate time simply by virtue
>>of the fact that he was an addict, under the guise of
>>treatment. Robinson lost. Some folks saw that loss as a
>>victory for addicts, since the Supreme Court held that
>>addiction was a disease, and what they did to him,
>>treatment. :)
>>
>>I am more familiar with New York's law, having been the
>>first addict mandated to treatment in a privately operated
>>program (Daytop Village) under the NACC, in October 1967. I
>>was commited for 3 years in lieu of being tried for
>>possession.*
>>
>>Most NYC addicts under that law were sent to Riker's Island
>>to await the creation of Phoenix House, under Efrain
>>Ramirez, MD. Some of them waited in the penitentiary for as
>>long as 18 months before Phoenix House was ready to accept
>>them, at which point their 3 years kicked in.
>>
>>Probably the best anecdote to illustrate the insanity of the
>>Rockefeller Law was the creation of the Woodbourne (SP?)
>>Rehab Center. Faced with 15,000 addicts being civilly
>>commited, who previously would have gone to prison, the
>>State had a brainstorm. (Can a State have a "brainstorm"?
>>No, as NY proved.) They remodelled the Woodbourne
>>Penitientiary, changed the sign over the entrance, changed
>>the job titles of the guards to counselors, hired a
>>psychologist and a plumber for their Voc Rehab unit, and
>>shipped several thousand addicts in for their rehab.
>>Woodbourne did have a kick-ass basketball team, though.
>>
>>They did the same thing at the Matawan Hopsital for the
>>Criminally Insane, converting part of the facility to the
>>Mid-Hudson Rehab. Pilgram State Hospital had a large
>>conversion as well. Etc.
>>
>>About 3 years later, the Feds had a brainstorm! They tore
>>down the bars at the PHS Hospital in Lexington, Ky., changed
>>the guard's titles, created what they called therapeutic
>>communities, and brought in some anthropologists. Right
>>there, we know there was trouble. The first sign of the
>>demise of any culture is when the anthropologists appear :)
>>
>>I happened to be at Lexington on a site visit** in the early
>>1970s when President Nixon announced that "KY" was going to
>>be re-converted to a prison. I commented to one of the
>>"counselors" that it was a shame they had torn down the old
>>bars, and would now have to install new ones. He smiled, and
>>said... "Oh, no. We didn't throw them away. We saved them."
>>
>>And so on.........
>>
>>peace,
>>john
>>* I left Daytop when it collapsed late in 1968. (It later
>>reformed.) For several years I had a felony warrant hanging
>>over me for "escape."  The NACC and I resolved our
>>differences in the 1970s, when they deemed me
>>"rehabilitated."
>>**God help the addicts, but by 1970 I was directing NJs
>>State operated residential program, with 2 years of
>>recovery. That was part of New Jersey's brainstorm. :)
>>
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