AP photo

After a number of e-mail messages from friends and family, I am forced to comment on today’s news that actress Lindsay Lohan began her 90 day jail sentence.  Because my family and friends are well aware of my work to dismantle the prison industrial complex (PIC), they are of course interested in my take on this matter.

I angrily told my sister earlier today that I didn’t want to be bothered with this issue and that I was most certainly NOT going to blog about it today.  I have obviously relented.  My reason is simple: it is a chance for me to once again reiterate that NOTHING GOOD COMES FROM PUTTING PEOPLE IN JAIL OR PRISON.  NOTHING!

Just today, I offered a crazy PIC fact of the day that focused on the astronomical numbers of people who are substance abusing or using and caught up in the system.  This is no joking matter and it is not something to make light of just because the person who happens to be afflicted with the substance abuse problem is a rich white girl.

There is something perverse about the purient nature of the spectacle surrounding this Lohan situation.  There is something extraordinarily troubling about the number of people who seem to feel that the “spoiled little rich girl” got what was coming to her.  There is something in human nature that likes to see people suffer particularly when we ourselves feel the boot of oppression heavily on our necks.  I can understand that impulse and yet I would like to see people reclaim their sense of humanity and decency.

I for one don’t want to be included among the mainstream voices who feel that jail will teach Lohan some sort of “lesson.”  What lesson is that exactly?  that we continue to wage a pointless, costly, and destructive war on drugs…

Lindsay Lohan should NOT be in jail today and neither should the thousands of other currently incarcerated people who are substance using or abusing.  This is not the right way to handle such issues.  We need a public health approach to addressing substance use and abuse rather than a criminalizing and punitive one.  I am sure that the t-shirts are already being printed but add my name to the list of people who say: FREE LINDSAY LOHAN.

Note: Here is another example of the low-rent coverage of Lindsay going to jail.