Of all the people I've represented as a criminal defense attorney, one of my favorites was a middle-aged Inupiat with a sharp, self-deprecating sense of humor who'd been living on the streets for over two decades. I'm not going to use her real name, so let's call her Betty. Betty once clobbered a man after he came up behind her and touched her on the shoulder. When the police asked her why she did it, Betty said she had no idea – something about the way he touched her had released a flash of anger so intense she couldn't control it.
But there was an explanation: before she was ever a defendant, Betty had been a victim. Indeed, if there is one experience that unites most of my clients, it's that they've been victims of child sexual abuse and received no help in recovering from the trauma it causes. Even those clients who saw their perpetrators caught and punished by the criminal justice system received little to no professional care after the perpetrator was convicted and sent to jail.
Depression, guilt, shame, self-blame, eating disorders, nightmares, insomnia, anxiety, dissociative patterns, repression, denial, sexual problems, relationship problems, post-traumatic stress disorder – childhood victimization is a substantial risk factor for the development of a host of mental health problems.
A study compared the PTSD symptoms in Vietnam veterans to those experienced by adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse and found sexual abuse can result in symptoms comparable to those of war-related trauma.
But despite the severity of the trauma, when a victim stands up in court at a defendant's sentencing to give what's called a "victim impact statement," that moment will effectively be the last time the criminal justice system concerns itself with the victim's well-being. Even our Office of Victim's Rights is focused on guiding victims through the defendant's criminal case, ignoring the larger question of what a victim needs to heal. Our system is focused on crime and punishment, not on restoration and healing, and the resources of the state after sentencing are directed at incarcerating and monitoring the defendant. More often than not, victims are sent back to the same environment where the abuse occurred with no tools to cope with its aftermath.
Of course for victims who happen to live in one of our state's more populated areas, and have the wherewithal to seek it out on their own and arrange for payment, trauma-specific counseling is available. But for victims who live in rural areas, particularly Bush villages where even basic medical care is sparse, the resources are virtually nonexistent.
This is a mistake, both in human and economic terms.
Left untreated, trauma does not simply dissipate over time. Without a healthy way to address the impact of sexual violence, many victims turn to drugs and alcohol. These substances are commonly used either as a form of self-punishment, a dulling buffer, a source of comfort or a memory-blocking device.
According to a study published in the American Journal of Addictions, 75 percent of women in treatment programs for drug and alcohol abuse report having been sexually abused. Another study in the Journal of Traumatic Stress discovered that of men who had been sexually abused as children over 80 percent had a history of substance abuse.
The cruel irony of this outcome is that alcoholism, substance abuse and mental health problems, all too often, lead to incarceration – either for low-level misdemeanors or far worse – turning victims into defendants. In other words, lack of treatment creates a self-perpetuating cycle that feeds our already bloated criminal justice system.
Our state government is now looking for ways to overhaul that system, which for years has been growing into an expensive engine of mass incarceration. From 2004 to 2013, our prison and jail population increased by 50 percent. Alaska now locks up a higher percentage of its citizens than almost any other state in the union. And yet the billions of dollars we have spent on incarceration have done nothing to dislodge Alaska as a national leader in rates of sexual assault and child sexual abuse.
Now is the time to consider a radical change to our approach. Let's start looking at the problem of sexual violence in a more holistic manner; as an act that doesn't just require punishment of the offender, but also healing of the victim. At minimum, victims' rights need to be expanded to include guaranteed access to counseling for trauma recovery.
This sounds expensive, but so is incarceration. In 2015, Alaska spent $143 per day or $52,000 per year to lock up just one inmate. An initial investment to stop to the cycle of despair that turns victim into defendant would result in substantial savings by reducing future prison populations. It would also save state, municipal and federal money by preventing or mitigating alcoholism, substance abuse and homelessness.
The savings in terms of human costs would be incalculable. It is heart-wrenching to see how untreated trauma bent the trajectories of so many lives downward. Betty, tough after so many years on the streets but still sharp and funny, should have had a better life. The hurt and frightened little girl she once was deserved our help.
Marcelle McDannel has been working in criminal law for almost two decades, both as a prosecutor and as a criminal defense attorney. She currently practices criminal defense statewide. Contact her at marcelle@alaskadispatch.com.
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