Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-2022
Abstract
Across the United States in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, substance abuse and mental illness have clashed with the criminal justice system to produce inequitable and tragic results. The War on Drugs especially affects rural communities, where resources for rehabilitative services, mental health treatment, and transitional housing are scarce. In these areas, the significant strain on the criminal justice system caused by the frequent intersection of substance abuse and mental illness has wrought overcrowded correctional facilities, congested criminal court dockets, exhausted public defenders, and devastated families. This Article is a case study of one such rural community's experience with the confluence of substance abuse and mental illness. Warren County, Tennessee, situated at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, has been acutely affected by the War on Drugs. The County lacks any meaningful rehabilitation facilities or mental health resources; this, combined with zealous policing and prosecuting practices, has produced little results in the way of crime prevention while exacerbating inequality. Notably, Warren County's recidivism rate has hovered over eighty percent, with most recidivists struggling from some combination of substance abuse and mental illness. Unfortunately, without the financial resources to treat the roots of the problems many accused persons face, the only perceived solution by those in power is incarceration. This Article surveys the effects of substance abuse and mental illness produced by the War on Drugs in Warren County, Tennessee, and demonstrates that the experience in this community is like that of other rural areas across the United States. This Article shows that the War on Drugs has failed these underprivileged regions and reform is critical to ending this inequity and injustice.
Recommended Citation
Bailey D. Barnes,
The Perfect Storm: Substance Abuse, Mental Illness, and Rural America, 20 University of New Hampshire Law Review 317
(2022).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/facpubs/1279