Great example of something that does not belong here. A social political issue with absolutely zero to do with tech or hacker news! Why is this getting upvotes?
maybe it's getting upvotes because it does belong on hacker news.
The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
31–40 of 82 posts
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#32I am an HN regular, and a forensic psychiatrist. Every day I work with mentally ill people who have been charged with crimes. I don't have much to add here except to say thanks for taking an interest. The mentally ill and the incarcerated are two of the most deeply marginalized groups in our society. It's nice that someone outside of our world is thinking about them.
And those are not even the biggest group. Most of them will never see someone in your position and just wander the streets spend one night or another in jail, but mostly on the street.
There are several documentaries about that. It's worse in the US because of the left over from the eugenics movement, when sanatoriums were deemed unnecessary.
i'm trying to remember names but i can only recall one: skid row. When watching remember that eugenics was very strong around LA. specially in the Pasadena area.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
You had me dangling by a thread, I was still sort of with you... then you declare that disallowing public nudity is tyranny? My friend, overstatement is a quick & easy way to lose support.
Public nudity is mere morals. IMO nothing law should deal with. Tyranny is a strong word, but it seems unreasonable interference.
It's a tiny bit more than morals (e.g., sanitation) but either way, I'm not commenting on whether law should deal with it. I'm objecting to the use of the word 'tyranny'.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#34"SINCE 1994 Tracey Aldridge has been arrested 100 times, jailed 27 times for more than 1,000 days and spent a total of eight years in prison." The math does not add up. There were not 27000 days since 1994. Did I misinterpret something?
Usually sentences of less than one year are served in city or county jails. Beyond one year, you go to prison.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#35The article uses a woman as an example and gives her crimes as: "trespassing, prostitution, drugs, disorderly conduct, petty theft, drinking in public". The petty theft is later discussed as theft from a supermarket, probably of some small food item. As to the others, why should any of them be imprisonable offenses? Drinking in public? Drugs? Prostitution? Trespassing is not breaking and entering, which is reasonable…
The model for mental health care shifted from institutions to community based care. The problem is that folks who won't say on medication disrupt and deny everyone from accessing public resources.
A crazy naked homeless man taking a shit in the middle of a public library is a problem. Yet in our society, it is often difficult to remove these sorts of folks.
These are difficult problems without easy solutions. We moved away from institutionalizing people because it was cruel and ineffective. But we're left with hard cases who are difficult to deal with.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#36I am an HN regular, and a forensic psychiatrist. Every day I work with mentally ill people who have been charged with crimes. I don't have much to add here except to say thanks for taking an interest. The mentally ill and the incarcerated are two of the most deeply marginalized groups in our society. It's nice that someone outside of our world is thinking about them.
And those are not even the biggest group. Most of them will never see someone in your position and just wander the streets spend one night or another in jail, but mostly on the street. There are several documentaries about that. It's worse in the US because of the left over from the eugenics movement, when sanatoriums were deemed unnecessary. i'm trying to remember names but i can only recall one: skid row. When watc…
We see those guys all the time. I'm not sure how accurate those documentaries are; the mass closing of psychiatric hospitals was primarily a product of the Community Mental Health Act of 1963 (as mentioned in the article). The intent was good (get people out of poorly run institutions), but had some serious unintended consequences. Although some people could be managed in the community, most communities have not funded clinics adequately and as a consequence many mentally ill people are on the street or incarcerated.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#37I am an HN regular, and a forensic psychiatrist. Every day I work with mentally ill people who have been charged with crimes. I don't have much to add here except to say thanks for taking an interest. The mentally ill and the incarcerated are two of the most deeply marginalized groups in our society. It's nice that someone outside of our world is thinking about them.
Well, I wish you would add more. You'd surely have more of value and experience to say than almost anybody here. But I hope that doesn't sound demanding--I really appreciate your comment.
I'd be happy to say more, but probably the most important thing people can do is read the article. Lack of adequate services for the mentally ill is a huge issue. In the absence of services, they often end up behaving oddly enough for someone to call the police, leading to arrest. More and more often we see families who are relieved that their loved ones are arrested just to get access to treatment.
That seems like a real shame, and often their needs are a bad fit for the correctional system. I work in a forensic hospital, and most of our patients come from jails. They often do not get very good care there. Private hospitals are largely closing their psychiatric units, because they don't make money. More and more, state or county funded hospitals and clinics are the last stop, and those (as mentioned in the article) are popular targets for defunding when the budget gets rough. It's a bad situation.
At any rate, I'll check in again in the morning if anyone else has more questions.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#38The article uses a woman as an example and gives her crimes as: "trespassing, prostitution, drugs, disorderly conduct, petty theft, drinking in public". The petty theft is later discussed as theft from a supermarket, probably of some small food item. As to the others, why should any of them be imprisonable offenses? Drinking in public? Drugs? Prostitution? Trespassing is not breaking and entering, which is reasonable…
>I propose that public nudity and refusing to give your name to police when they have no cause to ask it are both fundamental rights of man and that any society which denies these rights is tyrannical and any person who denies these rights is an enemy of humanity. Whoa, whoa, whoa.... whoa. I like to think of myself as open-minded but I'm not ready for that just yet. That being said, San Francisco apparently has no p…
>I like to think of myself as open-minded but I'm not ready for that just yet
But...why? Is there any good reason, or is it just puritanism?
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This discussion should not be on hacker news. Ok. I'll bite. Where should it be? What site provides deep discourse into these topics in an intelligent manner?
If the person you're replying to is going to flag it based that vague criteria, they might as well flag much of the front page. One should start finding better articles and submitting them if they believe HN is lacking what they perceive it to be proper content. I will vote something up is based on the quality of the article (whether it's technical news or not), if it has not already been submitted recently and if th…
For the record, I (the commenter you're referring to) do flag a lot of what's on the front page. In the vein of introspective disclosure, I recently found myself flagging an article PG submitted and other that tptacek did, so it's likely I am missing some of the nuance in the guidelines.
I can't say I contribute much to the site in the way of links though. Usually, by the time I find something I think would be valuable here it's already fallen off the top end of the new page and doesn't get much discussion. Either I don't have the infrastructure in place to find stuff interesting enough to submit, or thus far have just had some unlucky timing. Honestly though, you're right. I just don't submit very much.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#40The article uses a woman as an example and gives her crimes as: "trespassing, prostitution, drugs, disorderly conduct, petty theft, drinking in public". The petty theft is later discussed as theft from a supermarket, probably of some small food item. As to the others, why should any of them be imprisonable offenses? Drinking in public? Drugs? Prostitution? Trespassing is not breaking and entering, which is reasonable…
> "If police are arresting people without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion, then it is the police that are acting illegally here. You are not required to identify yourself to any police officer just because he asks, and if he asks without reasonable suspicion or probable cause (it depends on the state which one is the threshold), and you refuse to state your name, then he can not arrest you for that sole r…
> Some states actually have claims that you must identify yourself when stopped if the police officer asks. Failure to do so can lead to arrest under laws of the state:
This is false. You are misstating or misreading the article. You only must identify yourself (this does not mean you have to carry ID) if you are under a Terry stop and are in a state which has specifically enacted legislation requiring identification during a Terry stop. A Terry stop requires reasonable suspicion a crime has been committed. This is why I specifically and carefully said "you are not required to identify yourself to any police officer just because he asks, and if he asks without reasonable suspicion or probable cause (it depends on the state which one is the threshold), and you refuse to state your name, then he can not arrest you for that sole reason." In states with stop and identify laws that allow for it, he can require you identify yourself given reasonable suspicion of a crime. In other states, he needs probable cause.