THE HUMAN SIDE OF JUSTICE: What Most People Don't See About Addiction, Trauma, and Our Community

In every courtroom, every case file, and every interview room, there is a story that began long before a police report was written. A story most people never hear, but one that shapes the challenges we face here in Amador County and across the nation.

After years working in the criminal justice system, I’ve learned something many people don’t want to confront out loud: the path to addiction often begins long before anyone touches a drug. And the line between “criminal behavior” and untreated suffering is often razor-thin.

We speak harshly about addiction here — sometimes with anger, sometimes with exhaustion, sometimes with judgment — but rarely with understanding. Yet the people we judge the hardest are often the ones suffering the most.

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Addiction Rarely Starts With a “Bad Decision”

Most people don’t wake up hoping to destroy their own lives. There is almost always a story behind the first use — a story more painful than most people are willing to imagine. To have empathy, we must ask ourselves an uncomfortable question:

What would it take for me to reach for something that could ruin or end my life?

When you sit with people at their lowest moments — as I do — you begin to see the pattern. Nobody is proud of addiction. But many cannot imagine facing life sober because sobriety means facing memories, fears, trauma, anxiety, failure, or grief they have carried for years.

Addiction — whether to alcohol or drugs — is often a mask:

• A way to dull pain

• A way to quiet fear

• A way to numb loss

• A way to avoid memories that never healed

• A way to avoid confronting yourself

Some people were victims long before they became defendants.

Some have untreated mental-health conditions no one ever recognized.

Some carry trauma they never recovered from.

Many numb pain, both physical and emotional, that no one ever helped them face.

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The Silent Trauma No One Talks About

Here is a truth we don’t like facing:

A heartbreaking number of men and women in the criminal justice system were sexually assaulted as children or teenagers.

According to national studies, nearly half of incarcerated women report childhood sexual abuse, and a large DOJ-sponsored survey found that 23% to 37% of female state-prison inmates reported physical or sexual abuse prior to age 18.

Most never received therapy.

Most never told an adult.

Most never recovered.

Decades later, we judge their addictions.

We shake our heads at their choices.

But we rarely ask where it began.

Trauma does not excuse behavior.

But it does explain pain and how choices were made.

If we ignore the cause, we will never understand the problem.

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Alcohol vs. Drugs: The Double Standard

We talk about drugs in Amador County as if they are something “other people” use. Yet far too many tragic events involving violence, neglect, or serious injury in our community have alcohol somewhere in the background.

The CDC reports:

• 178,000 Americans die each year from excessive alcohol use

• 105,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2023

• Alcohol is the most commonly used substance among Americans age 12 and older

Yet we celebrate with alcohol at holidays, events, dinners, and weekends — even though alcohol is a drug, and one that destroys more families and lives than many of the substances we condemn.

We condemn the meth user,

mock the fentanyl user,

shame the pill addict —

while our bars and liquor stores stay open daily, and we quietly ignore the harm happening in our own homes.

Addiction doesn’t care whether a substance is legal.

At a family event, when we see the relative struggling with alcohol but say nothing — that’s addiction.

At school, when a child arrives unkempt because a parent passed out at 4 a.m. — that’s addiction.

When someone stays with an abusive partner who drinks — that’s addiction too.

Different symptoms.

Different substances.

Same disease.

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The Medicine Cabinet

If we walked into homes across this county and opened medicine cabinets, we would find as many controlled substances as we find on the street — if not more — just with labels on them.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA):

• Methamphetamine, prescription stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin, and many opioid medications are all Schedule II controlled substances with similar risks for dependence and misuse

• Methamphetamine is even legally prescribed under the brand name Desoxyn

And according to the CDC:

• Of the 105,007 U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2023, nearly 80,000 involved opioids (prescription or illicit), with synthetic opioids such as fentanyl driving the majority.

Here’s the part we rarely acknowledge:

For many, addiction begins with a medicine bottle - not a street dealer.

Pain pills after an injury.

Benzodiazepines for anxiety.

A prescribed stimulant that was later misused.

Leftover meds from an old prescription.

A family member’s pills taken “just to get through a hard night.”

Then tolerance builds.

Then dependency.

Then the bottle runs out.

Then people start searching for something that feels similar.

And the jump from “legal” to “illegal” is often one of desperation, not desire.

Prescription opioids and illicit fentanyl stimulate the same receptors.

Prescription stimulants and methamphetamine stimulate the same receptors.

Benzodiazepines and illicit depressants suppress the same system.

The chemicals come from different places.

But the brain doesn’t care.

The addiction doesn’t care.

The consequences don’t care.

Only we do — and often only when the substance comes from the street.

One person gets their pills from a pharmacy.

Another gets their pills from someone off the street.

But biologically, the difference is far smaller than most people want to believe.

The point is simple:

The medications found in our homes are far closer to illicit street drugs than most people realize.

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Mental Health and Substance Abuse Are Deeply Connected

A large portion of people arrested for drug use could be stabilized with proper mental-health treatment.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) notes that national research consistently finds high rates of co-occurring substance-use and mental-health disorders.

Many people who turn to illicit drugs are seeking the same relief others receive through:

• antidepressants

• anti-anxiety medication

• mood stabilizers

• trauma therapy

• grief counseling

The difference is not just access. It is family support and upbringing. Early intervention provided in school. Resources and experiences not everyone had — such as growing up in a church, being involved in community groups, or participating in sports. Just because we experienced those things doesn’t mean everyone else did.

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Accountability Still Matters — But So Does Empathy

Accountability is necessary.

Consequences matter.

Safety matters.

But accountability without humanity is not justice — it’s punishment for its own sake.

We can:

• hold people accountable without dehumanizing them

• protect the community without abandoning compassion

• reduce crime by treating root causes, not just symptoms

This isn’t softness.

This is effectiveness.

Every parent, every taxpayer, and every business owner should want a justice system that reduces harm — not recycles it. We as a community should see this work as an investment that pays itself back — seeing our friends and neighbors return to us better than ever.

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We Cannot Punish Our Way Out of a Mental-Health Crisis

When the only tool we use is punishment, we end up applying one answer to everyone — and it never fits.

But addiction is not the same for everyone.

Addiction is pain.

Addiction is trauma.

Addiction is untreated depression.

Addiction is childhood assault.

Addiction is fear, confusion, and loneliness.

Addiction is people trying to survive emotions they never learned to face.

We cannot punish trauma out of someone.

We cannot incarcerate someone into mental health.

We cannot shame someone back to stability.

But we can create a community where people have a real chance to face their addictions and what created them.

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The Human Side of Justice Is the One We Keep Forgetting

People don’t need pity — they need honesty.

They need boundaries.

They need consequences.

They need accountability.

They need structure.

But they also need hope.

They need someone to believe they can be more than their worst moment.

If we want safer families, safer neighborhoods, and safer streets, we must stop treating addiction as a simple moral failure. Any one of us — or someone we love — could be one tragedy away from the same struggle.

Justice is not only about punishment.

It’s about the change we inspire in other people’s lives.

Some of the greatest heroes in our community are the ones who refuse to give up on someone — who try again and again, without wavering, to help a person climb out of addiction, even when that person doesn’t believe they deserve saving or cannot imagine life without addiction.

That is what humanity looks like.

That is what justice should reflect.

That is how communities heal.

I can tell you from experience: being part of someone’s recovery — watching a person rebuild their life, reconnect with their children, repair relationships, and chase new dreams — is far more rewarding than hearing the click of handcuffs or the slam of a cell door.

Right now in our community, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, and lifelong friends are fighting their addictions in treatment facilities. Some are there because they want to avoid jail. Others because they genuinely want to change. Some have already overcome the hardest part and are rebuilding their lives.

The question we must answer as a community is this:

Will we see the people they are becoming — or continue to judge them for who they used to be?