Parker Statement - Psychiatric Consultant Claims Rehabilitation is Helped Through Positive Identification with Community
Press Release
September 5, 1968

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Press Releases, Volume 5. Parker Statement - Psychiatric Consultant Claims Rehabilitation is Helped Through Positive Identification with Community, 1968. bf86e6e4-b892-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/4a90672b-3d83-460e-857f-308d12ebaf9b/parker-statement-psychiatric-consultant-claims-rehabilitation-is-helped-through-positive-identification-with-community. Accessed July 13, 2025.
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Pus President I Hon, Francis E. Rivers A PRESS RELEASE ctor Lo egal efense und ; : NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC Jesse DeVore, 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 NIGHT NUMBER 212 Statement by Milford Parker, M.D., Chief, Adult Psychiatric Clinic, Harlem Hospital, Sept. 5, 1968 Individuals who have come into conflict with society because of criminal behavior are most frequently people who have deep feelings of alienation and have great difficulty in identifying with the com- munity. This is particularly true for the black prisoner. Imprisonment, by isolating the individual still further from society, serves to perpetuate and aggravate this undesirable, emotionally damaging situation. To the extent that imprisonment is regarded as primarily a rehabilitative process rather than punitive and revengeful, every effort should be made to aid the prisoner in overcoming his sense of social alienation and isolation and to estab- lish a positive identification with the community. It would follow from this, therefore, that any and all efforts on the part of a prisoner to establish or maintain a relationship to the community through the reading of magazines, newspapers, books or other printed material should be given every encouragement. This type of interest is often indicative of an area of relative emotional health in an otherwise quite disturbed individual and can serve as a valuable starting point in helping him towards becoming an involved, contributing member of society. By denying the prisoner easy access to printed material from the community, his sense of alienation and isolation and closely associated feelings of resentment and hostility are increased, making the continuation of his criminal, anti-social behavior ever more likely. If he is unable to identify with society or feel that he has a stake in it, then he has no interest in becoming a part of it, preserving it, or strengthening it. Indeed, he regards it as the source of his feelings of frustration and as a legitimate target for the expression of his hostile rage. =30=