Sedona, Az — In a recent analysis by KJZZ 91.5 FM, Report ranks Arizona 49th in adult mental health care, it was stated that, “Mental Health America ranked Arizona 49th in the nation for adult mental health care. The national nonprofit determines rankings based on the prevalence of mental illness and the access to mental health care. Arizona’s 2023 ranking of 49 out of 51 is based on the state having a higher prevalence of mental illness and lower access to insurance and treatment.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported U.S. Overdose Deaths Decrease in 2023, First Time Since 2018, expressing “Provisional data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicate there were an estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 2023—a decrease of 3% from the 111,029 deaths estimated in 2022. This is the first annual decrease in drug overdose deaths since 2018.”
The many facets of mental health problems and substance use disorders require continuous efforts to achieve social and occupational balance for the affected and those at risks. It includes the possibility to have a safer society while reducing crime and prison population. How can crimes be further prevented? There are people with mental health problems and those involved in drug trafficking that are incarcerated. There are also people who are recidivists.
An approach is the human mind, where training and instructions on two aspects of it may provide an option against crimes.
It is theorized that the human mind is the collection of all the electrical and chemical signals of nerve cells with their interactions and features, in sets. The interaction is how they mechanize functions like memory, emotions, feelings and modulation of internal senses. The features apply to qualify the functions. Features include attention, awareness [or less than attention], self or subjectivity and intentionality, free will or control.
In simple terms, the human mind has functions and those functions have features that grade or qualify them. A function like pain—a feeling, or hurt—an emotion, or a comment—which is language—as an aspect of memory, can be qualified by attention, awareness, self and intent.
Attention is the most prioritized process in any instance. It could be the focus of sight or the sound that is listened to, not just heard. Subjectivity is—the experience of things as a being or—the self. Intentionality, free will or control is the exertion or disengagement of the self—in several processes. For example, there is intentionality or free will with speech, to say the right things in the right ways. There is free will in where to look, how to sit, stand, walk and so forth, as general examples.
Two ways to reduce crime are consequences—a subdivision of memory, and intentionality—a feature that applies across many functions.
People that are just released from a correctional facility can be recommended to undergo training on consequences and intentionality. Those who are also vulnerable to crime can be advised to do the same. There can be some forms of video training on this, for mobile phones and other devices, with expectation for practice and supervision—by loved ones.
Consequences
In the physical world, effects are common. Throwing anything up, there is an effect of something on it—gravity—that makes it come down. Adding or removing anything has an effect on what is being added or removed. Many effects may appear to be negligible but somewhere at the molecular, atomic or subatomic level, something might be changing. Also, some effects may accumulate or show up, someway, at some point.
In human society, effects can be characterized as consequences. Consequences are even more significant than in the physical world. There are many things that can be done to or said to objects that may not have a significant physical effect, but the same cannot be done or said to another human without consequences. There are many things that—to objects—can be reversed if done to them, but cannot be with another human. There are things that can be done to objects that no matter the effect, do not matter.
Consequences are determinative in human society. Laws are sometimes a result of consequences, which too become consequences. Forgetting or ignoring consequences may indicate some problem, which may require care. However, to continue to be a part of human society, there are consequences that must never be forgotten.
People who just got out of penitentiary, or inmates can be given lessons on effect correlates of consequences, solely for the objective, to be shown what might result, so that it gets attention in memory, whenever they are confronted with a situation that may become so problematic if that action is taken.
For example, throwing a tennis ball in liquid it splatters, on steel the sound is different, on concrete the sound is also different, the speed of projection also matters, as molecules of the air are displaced and those in the ball—depending on conditions—adjust their motion. These will be explained with basic physics, then related to human interactions and what might result, in many other cases, to ensure that the memory of consequence is carried around, against any kind of proximity to trouble.
Intentionality
Free will, control or intentionality is simply what to say or not to say, when, how, why, to whom and so forth. It applies to when to walk or not, sit or stand. Intentionality training can be given to people about to be released or after, to ensure that control is associated with consequences, against harmful actions.
They can be told to run at some edges without crossing it, or to catch a ball that would come up when thrown, or to only catch a color and not the other, or presented with things that are attractive while deepening resistance by control among several other training that can shape intentionality in use of the hands, feet, speech and even thoughts.
The objective is to have intentionality—against actions—with consequences, get attention in the mind, to avoid becoming convicts.
It is a training to bolster intentionality, in a way to prevent a mistake or an error that could become costly. It is also a way to ensure that consequences in the mind are at the fore, and then intent is useful to understand what might ensue, if the individual does not hold back. Intent is also helpful to walk away from certain situations or to consider other things, to ensure that risks—or exposure—are diminished.
This may apply to some cases and not to others, but overall, it could be another approach to reduce crime and prison population. It can also be extended to training to taper the feeling of [enclosure or] incarceration even after getting out of jail, all of which are possible from a conceptual model of the human mind.
In a new feature in Scientific American, Does Quantum Physics Rule Out Free Will?, the author wrote, “Scientists and philosophers have been arguing over the question for centuries and are often torn between two competing poles. Some think, Yes, you obviously have free will. Others think, No, you can’t possibly have free will because the laws of physics say that whatever happens was determined by what happened immediately before—and the happenings within human minds are no exception. Recently a new argument for why quantum mechanics is even more deterministic than physicists might have thought has sparked the debate anew.”
How does the human mind work? What is the human mind? Arguments for or against free will never express. There is also no evidence that outside of cells, elementary particles of physics are responsible for mind or consciousness, refuting panpsychism. The path here—over free will—is not about too broad cases outside of choices that are generally possible and available to many, like turning the neck—to look or not, or choosing to eat or not, kicking or catching a ball and so on. There are several functions in the body where there is no free will. There are those that are can be involuntary like blinking, salivating and so on, that are also somewhat voluntary. It is proposed that whatever is possible with intentionality, is mechanized by the sets of electrical and chemical signals, responsible for some functions, ruling out readiness potential.
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