My family’s struggles turned into our darkest hour.
After my son Thom was arrested on March 20, 2013 and again on April 11 of 2013, my husband and I took our son’s keys and disabled his vehicle so he wouldn’t kill anyone, including himself, driving high.
It had become grievously clear that, while well-intended, Shasta Community Health Center does NOT have a viable medical detox program. Broken, lost, and feeling hopeless, Thom finally agreed to enter some type of residential rehab program. Knowing he had legal issues facing him, he made an appointment for Monday, July 15 to meet with his probation officer and make a plan for rehab. In the meantime, we began the arduous process of finding a low- to no-cost treatment center for our addicted son.
For the two weeks leading up to his appointment with his probation officer, Thom’s emotions were all over the place. He was addicted to dope, which he shot up every night; meaning he was awake all night pacing the house. I would get up to find him in the kitchen, or in the garage arranging and rearranging his tools. Every morning, he would shoot up heroin, and by noon, he would be blacked out in his room where I would find him when I got home from work after 6 p.m.
It was no different on July 13. When we got up, Thom was surly and short-tempered; a typical reaction from coming-down off of meth.
I’d found him in the kitchen several times that night and I was edgy from not enough sleep and other personal struggles facing our family. He disappeared into the bathroom for a “shower”. When he came out he was jovial; he had shot up heroin.
It was what had become a ‘normal day’ for us since he returned to our home in April and, like all the days preceding, by mid-day he had blacked out on his bed.
My husband and I left about 1:40 p.m. When we returned at about 4:20 p.m, we expected to find him blacked out in his bed like ‘normal’ when we returned. Unfortunately, we were wrong. Thom was nowhere in the house. His dogs, bicycle and disabled truck were here. There was no note like he would usually leave. No text, and he didn’t answer his phone. His sister hadn’t heard from him.
So, we waited. We prayed. We tried to get some sleep. A little after 2 a.m., the dogs started barking and my husband said “Get up! There’s a train of sheriff cars in our driveway!”
My first thought was, “My baby boy is dead.” But no, logic filtered through the 2 a.m fog. It would only take one sheriff to tell us that. They were looking for him. But, why?
We opened the door to see officers with flashlights, hands on their guns, searching everywhere. They searched our home, our garage, and all the grounds around our home. Then came the life-altering news that they believed Thom was part of a “pot-deal gone bad”.
Our son did, indeed, turn up the next morning and we drove him to Shasta County Jail. His level of complacency was fully intact with regard to his experiences with the judicial system. All they had ever done was book and release him, and with his perspective of what had happened the night before, that was what was going to happen that day, as well.
Thom was wrong this time.
Thom was booked into Shasta County Jail July 14, 2013, and this is where he sits today. Our son detoxed ‘cold turkey’ in Shasta County Jail from tobacco, meth and heroin.
I cannot describe for you the anguish of seeing my son in jail, compounded with detoxing from such horrible drugs. There was a selfish sense of relief. Our son was finally becoming drug-free! But at what cost? He was scheduled to meet with his probation officer the next day to get out of Redding and into rehab.
We had all taken turns staying up with him through detox just last Christmas. We rubbed his back, drew hot baths, and gave him all the herbal and homeopathic remedies we knew to give him. We did everything we knew to do to help him through the detox process. Now we had to trust and pray that, if our son went into cardiac arrest, the correctional officers would be there to not let him die.
The first few weeks, we took turns crying ourselves to sleep. We were/are unable to hold him, unable to touch him. The tears stream down our faces, but my son said, “Half of these guys have been to prison, mom. I can’t let them see me cry.”
There began what I call ‘Prison 101.’
Now a new nightmare began: the American penitentiary system. It is ever so apparent that county jail is the educational grounds for what one might expect in prison.
- Drugs are easier to acquire in prison than on the streets.
- The prisons are ultimately run by the inmates.
- If an inmate is crouching/squatting it may be for easy access to a shank stored in their “prison pocket”.
- If you are new to the system it is highly likely you will be made to “prove” yourself or you will be beaten, possibly killed.
- If you look into the eyes of a “lifer” you see they have NOTHING to lose.
- Making a “deal” to reduce your sentence means “ratting / snitching” on someone else. Being a “rat” means your life will be in greater danger ‘inside.’ The system’s answer to protecting you and “thanks” for turning over information about someone else lands you in “Protective Custody” (PC). PC means you are in lock-down 23 hours of everyday. If you weren’t mentally ill before you went in you will be when you get out.
- If an inmate tells you to give them something you have that they want and you refuse the can and do make your life a living hell (as if it weren’t already).
- From personal history, the one I find particularly terrifying is rape. The primary target for prison rape is documented to be tall, thin, good looking, young, white men. As a survivor, I always worried and about my daughters and prayed they would never get first-hand knowledge of rape as their mother did. Now I pray daily my son doesn’t experience it.
In prison — although some have work assignments — nearly all inmates’ basic needs are met. Individuals don’t cook for themselves, do laundry, or clean up after themselves. They can go into the rec yard and play basketball, work out, read (if they choose). It sounds very much like grade-school with teacher or mommy meeting all their needs. When they get out, mommy isn’t there and they have no life skills. It’s no surprise to me that recidivism is high.
With nothing but time to think in jail, my son became overwhelmingly ashamed of himself. We knew/know his behavior on drugs was the drugs and not our son. We love our son unconditionally. He knows we (his family) forgive him and after much struggle he is forgiving himself. Today, Thom is 14 months clean. He made it through the detox process alone and now he is on the road to “recovery” alone. The picture of his recovery is his own thoughts, Eckhart Tolle‘s book, The Power of Now, the Bible, countless motivational quotes from me and self-counseling sessions with other inmates with similar stories.
Leading up to this July incident, each time Thom was arrested he said, “Mom, they’re setting me up to fail,” due to the practice of book and release and no suggestion of options.
My son has been in the workers pod since January 2, 2014. His proudest moment since July 14, 2013 was being able to wear a button-up white shirt and go to work. His latest assignment is working “interior” or booking. He tells stories of detainees shouting profanities at the CO’s (Correctional Officers) and saying that they are being set up to fail. One young man even went so far as to write those words on the walls of a safety cell using the only thing he had– his own feces. As recently as last month, I heard a CO say to someone who was being released- “Yep, book and release. That’s what we do,” as he was opening the door to release someone.
This past year was not the plan. Before this last arrest, my son was beginning to fight the powerful voice of the drugs. The appointment with probation was set. Our fears of our son dying from his addiction to these hardcore drugs was subsiding. And then this nightmare began.
People are angry. Our city, county and regional community are angry– tired of being robbed, of not feeling safe walking down the street, tired of drug deals happening on the sidewalk in front of their businesses, tired of the homeless sleeping, urinating and defecating behind their buildings and homes, of people being released from the jail in the middle of the night putting law abiding citizens at greater risk of being broken into by a druggie needing money for a fix.
I own a business downtown, and I see these issues everyday. I have family and friends who live downtown. I also have son who became addicted to hardcore drugs and is fully entrenched in the system.
Many in law enforcement have understandably become jaded. Recidivism will continue as long as the judicial system treats addiction and mental illness as a crime.
Inmates receive no routine counseling or guidance on how to re-assimilate into “normal” society. Under AB109, prison over-crowding is returning prisoners to the county where they committed their crime. We are sending large numbers of people who have the disease of addiction to prison where they become highly educated in survival aka “Prison 101.”
Then we release them back to their home, family and community with this new education and zero skills for how to live a socially acceptable life and we get angry with them.
I have spoken to numerous parents who are walking a similar path. Our children became addicted to drugs, which led them to become entangled in a drug culture that led to crime in an effort to acquire drugs and/or to not be “taken out” by your dealer because you owe them substantial amounts of money.
I believe we have a choice. We can choose to judge people and call them hopeless criminals or we can look at this as the human and health crisis it is, and change a system that is failing. When I ask Thom what would have helped him he answered, “Three months in a locked, mandatory residential rehab.”
He believes that once his head was “clear” he could make rational choices with the guidance and support of counseling, quality nutrition, family and social support.
I, for one, would like to stop training people to be hardened criminals and instead help people to live happy, self respecting and productive lives. My son is over a year clean from all drugs, including cigarettes, and ready to embrace an organized rehabilitation program and begin his life.
After seeing and hearing stories of the crimes of people who have been released on ankle monitors and with suspended sentences, I have to believe this will be true for my son.
Click here for Part 1 of Pam Jones’ story about her son Thom.
Pam Jones lives and works in Redding. She is helping start the “Breaking Free Addiction Resources and Family Services” in Redding.