48 Because of the long history of anti-drug policing in the United States and the criminalization of substance use, clients who use substances are vulnerable to direct and vicarious experiences of police violence. Consequently, those who use substances may face a greater risk of experiencing symptoms of trauma that counselors should address in treatment. We recommend the use of a trauma-informed and abolitionist praxis in clinical and social justice practices as a framework to support clients who use substances and have histories of exposure to police violence. Keywords: substance use, police violence, trauma, abolitionist, social justice Policing in the United States has received increased scrutiny in recent years with renewed attention resulting from the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Specifically, policing has been critiqued by prison–industrial complex abolitionists—activists who advocate toward an end to systems of policing, prisons, and related carceral systems in favor of systems and practices that promote accountability, justice, healing, and transformation—as being inherently violent, meaning that it relies on the use of behavior that is considered violent in any context (Cullors, 2019; A. Y. Davis et al., 2022; Green, 2022; Kaba, 2021; Klukoff et al., 2021). Violence is defined as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation” (Krug et al., 2002, p. 5). Thus, we define police violence as the inherently violent uses of force by police officers. According to the World Health Organization, there are four types of violence that can be used to categorize police violence: physical (e.g., arrests and the use of weapons), sexual (e.g., strip searching and sexual assault), psychological (e.g., intimidation and verbal threats), and neglect (e.g., failing to provide support to medical and mental health needs; DeVylder et al., 2017; Krug et al., 2002). Current data suggests that 58.3 million U.S. residents over the age of 16 experienced contact from police officers in 2020 with roughly 1 million experiencing or being threatened with non-fatal force (Tapp & Davis, 2022). Moreover, of the 82 million arrests reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI; 2022) between 2011 and 2021, substance use violations were the second most common arrests, accounting for 14% of arrests. Oftentimes, counselors may work with clients who have been court-ordered to treatment as part of diversion programs that seek to route individuals away from incarceration and toward treatment for criminalized behaviors, such as substance use (Scott, 2020). Given that substance use–related offenses are among the most common offenses leading to violence through an arrest (FBI, 2022), it is essential for substance use counselors to prepare to address experiences of police violence that may result from anti-drug policing—the use of police violence as a response to individuals who use substances. Although anti-drug policing impacts both those who use substances and those who traffic them, our discussion on anti-drug policing will focus on populations who use substances. The Professional Counselor™ Volume 14, Issue 1, Pages 48–63 http://tpcjournal.nbcc.org © 2024 NBCC, Inc. and Affiliates doi: 10.15241/dag.14.1.48 Darius A. Green, Katharine R. Sperandio Abolitionist Praxis for Substance Use Clients Who Experience Anti-Drug Policing Darius A. Green, PhD, NCC, is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Katharine R. Sperandio, PhD, NCC, ACS, LPC, is an assistant professor and a CACREP-accreditation coordinator at Saint Joseph’s University. Correspondence may be addressed to Darius A. Green, 1420 Austin Bluffs Pkwy, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, dgreen20@uccs.edu.
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