91–100 of 143 posts
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Amerika, Amerika, the beautiful.
Why do you assume this happened in the US? Chances are good that it did, but to me it sounds like a story that could have taken place in just about any country in the world.
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The doctors are likely professionals, but why do you believe the doctors are trustworthy professionals? There is science, and there is Science.
Not sure what we are discussing - if doctors can decide someone as being disturbed and dangerous then they by definition can also decide that they are not. Now, this is obviously a hard and delicate problem when it comes to the releasing part of the equation. But the argument that they are either incapable or untrustworthy to make the judgment doesn't fly - why were they capable and trustworthy when locking someone u…
1) The person would have been locked up whether found sane or insane. The only different was location.
2) You are admitting facts not in evidence, when you assume that the doctors were capable and trustworthy when determining the insanity. There is science and there is Science.
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From Tom's perspective, that sentence may well have ended his life. The length of it was immaterial. I'm sure he would have lost his scholarship as a convicted felon, and his admissions offer might have been rescinded too. There goes college entirely. Most jobs would also become unavailable to him with a felony on his record. Likely he'd be hired by someone who'd exploit him because they'd know he was basically unemp…
> convicted felon You're probably correct that he would have lost the scholarship, but shoplifting is not a felony and if he's getting thirty days in jail, I don't think he's being convicted of a felony assault on the guard or something.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amerika, Amerika, the beautiful.
Why do you assume this happened in the US? Chances are good that it did, but to me it sounds like a story that could have taken place in just about any country in the world.
> people who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity or who have been arrested but found incompetent to stand trial — are involuntarily confined to psychiatric hospitals. Here, "psychiatric hospital" literally means "prison with carpets". There are locked doors instead of bars, and caretakers instead of guards, but it's a prison all the same. My brother had a mental breakdown ( not violent or criminal , but…
The smart people “play” healthy, not admitting ongoing doubts and concerns. Why? Because you go to the hospital to make rapid medication changes. The therapy offered is often insufficient, both in terms of one-one-one therapy and simply what you can cover during your stay. Overstaying is enough to make anyone clinically depressed. It can also cost a lot; while it is illegal to fire for mental health leaves, it is not uncommon to get let go for “unrelated reasons”, to prevent paying for future stays, or simply because they’re uncomfortable supporting their employees to this extent.
Mental health hospitals are aimed at maximizing the number of beds in use, ensuring everyone is at least as medicated as the doctor thinks they can handle, and pumping insurance companies for money. If you are considering one, use it to prevent crises, not to expect any kind of therapy suited for long-term help. The simply do not have the available attention, funding, or even reliable pharmaceutical research to make a dent in the latter.
To be honest, I have high hopes for psychedelics to make fruitful, therapeutic use in a short stay. As it is I’ve lost faith in the pharmaceutical industry to demonstrate the pills they make are effective, let alone not harmful to the general population. 3/5ths of the mental health prescriptions I’ve been given have been pulled from the market, linked to high suicide rates, or linked to other serious medical issues (no shit, Risperdal made me lactate as a male.)
...and of course, the absolute worst part is seeing people you know will never function in society, many rimes without family. I suppose better the asylum than the street, but we will likely always need long-term mental health care in publicly funded facilities.
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Do you consider it much different from the practice of denying parole when convicts continue to profess innocence instead of professing contriteness? If someone is really innocent, they are in the catch 22 of staying in prison for life because parole boards deny release but if they just lie and pretend to feel contrite they get out on parole right away after serving time. There was a case on NPR recently but there's…
The thing about that is, in practical terms, the prisoners are making a terrible choice by sticking to their guns. They options are: 1) Keep professing innocence and stay in prison. 2) Lie and express remorse, and maybe get out. 3) Lie and express remorse, and maybe get out... and then work to retroactively exonerate yourself, when you're on the outside and actually have some chance of doing so without a lucky guardi…
Being a convicted felon has long repercussions outside of your original jail time where this calculated - seemingly rational - strategy you discuss is only a short term one...
There is an important point brought up in the OP's linked wikipedia page:
>> Medwed's Second Look clinic, a group dedicated to the release of innocent prisoners, assisted lawyers in his eighth parole board hearing which was successful, releasing him onto indefinite parole. Overturning the original conviction would be hampered by his admissions of guilt at his parole hearings.
The admission of guilt extends well beyond the release from prison. Including jobs, reputation, future convictions... not to mention the possible compensation he could receive for if the original wrongful conviction is overturned.
Tom, name made up, is a friend of mine. Sort of... I knew Tom for only a short while but I still write him letters and send him a few dollars every couple of weeks. When Tom was just 18, he had finished school and was headed off to a large university on a sports scholarship. Not having any money, and coming from a poor family, he looked forward to this. It was going to be his big break. But, Tom needed a wardrobe fit…
This is the core of Robert Whitaker's thesis: psychiatric medications take a episodic condition and make it chronic. Ref: anatomy of an epidemic (2010)
In Psychiatrists Must Face Possibility That Medications Hurt More Than They Help, blogger John Horgan says the most recent studies seem to confirm Whitaker's hypothesis: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/psychiatris...
> people who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity or who have been arrested but found incompetent to stand trial — are involuntarily confined to psychiatric hospitals. Here, "psychiatric hospital" literally means "prison with carpets". There are locked doors instead of bars, and caretakers instead of guards, but it's a prison all the same. My brother had a mental breakdown ( not violent or criminal , but…
Agreed. Years ago, my wife made a suicide attempt that I stopped. We agreed together to go to the psych hospital after for evaluation. It was a mistake. They forcibly kept her for 3 days. She has a huge anxiety about being trapped places since she was neglected and abandoned as a kid. It didn't prevent her from hurting herself any more than she would have, and made things much worse afterwords because it was traumati…
Additionally, some classes of people are mandated reporters. If they fail to report the threat, or attempt, they will lose their license and, I think, can face both civil and criminal charges. Again, some variation depending on jurisdiction.
Teachers, health care professionals, day care workers, police, etc. are all mandated reporters. They must, by law, report an attempt or threat. An attempt, by law, means a minimum of 72 hours of involuntary commitment. After which, a judge can be called in to extend the stay.
I had a sister who was mentally ill. For my last two years in the Marines, I was a transportation officer at a detention facility (brig), where I was a mandated reporter and sometimes had to work with people who had developed their mental illness during their enlistment or had somehow managed to pass the psych eval and managed to enlist. There were a suprisingly large number of them.
So, I've had some exposure to the system and the missus used to work in the field. For a while, I volunteered to help some of them out. I used to take some fishing, hiking, and to do things like archery practice. I was a mandated reporter during that, and had to take a number of classes on mental health.
If you're curious, I stopped because I don't have the heart for it. It isn't that I don't have a heart for the mentally ill, it's that I don't have the heart for the system in which they are stuck. I don't like being powerless and I was unable to effect change.
There was a very high profile case in Ontario over a decade ago. Basically, the man went into an absolute psychotic state on the travelling bus and cut the head off a stranger while everyone else on the bus ran for their lives. A decade later, he's been released- under a lot of conditions and on a lot of medication, but people are very upset that he'd ever be free at all. In interviews, he's a very interesting person…
"... we have to be respectful of people who disagree with the decision on that basis, but recognize that we've made a decision as a civilized country that we don't punish people who really didn't know what they were doing at the time of the offence, and really didn't know that they were doing something wrong, and that's a very, very small subset of people..."
In the US, our insanity defense laws are setup to maintain the appearance that we are a civilized country during the court phase - and then after the case vanishes from the headlines, we become savages that lock these people in padded rooms, often until they die. Canada actually is a civilized country that is willing to abide by the spirit of such laws, even when the outcome is controversial.
I'm an American, but I find myself cringing more and more when I say that these days.
[1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/vince-li-discharge-1....
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Agreed. Years ago, my wife made a suicide attempt that I stopped. We agreed together to go to the psych hospital after for evaluation. It was a mistake. They forcibly kept her for 3 days. She has a huge anxiety about being trapped places since she was neglected and abandoned as a kid. It didn't prevent her from hurting herself any more than she would have, and made things much worse afterwords because it was traumati…
I believe the law, varies by State, usually mandates a minimal of 72 hours of observation in a psychiatric facility when there has been an attempt, or credible threat, reported. Additionally, some classes of people are mandated reporters. If they fail to report the threat, or attempt, they will lose their license and, I think, can face both civil and criminal charges. Again, some variation depending on jurisdiction.…