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The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

economist.com

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Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#41

Post by anigbrowl »

droithomme wrote: post #20

The 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…

That's likely to be more costly than prison since it requires round the clock medical care, and is no better than a prison since they are locked up.

Some people need round the clock medical care. Making the problem go away by just legalizing everything, including petty theft, is a silly solution.

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#42

Post by rhizome »

sliverstorm wrote: post #33
fosap wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

(e.g., sanitation)

Really? Is there even a single documented case of a sanitation problem caused by mere nudity?

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#43

Post by [deleted] »

droithomme wrote: post #40
yareally wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

[deleted]

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#44

Post by grahamburger »

phren0logy wrote: post #37
gruseom wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My aunt is in that situation. She is severely mentally ill and homeless. She was in a shelter until a few months ago, no one has heard from her since. No one else in the family can afford to get her treatment, and she wouldn't comply even if we tried - she doesn't know she's mentally ill, she thinks her delusions are reality. We would all be relieved if she landed in jail as long as it came with some treatment. She is very intelligent, though, and she is not using drugs or alcohol, so she may never get herself in enough trouble to land in jail.

Committing people to treatment against their will sounds like a bad idea just begging for abuse, but what else can we do? In what world could she actually be taken care of? I don't know the answer.

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#45

Post by fsck--off »

droithomme wrote: post #20

The 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…

> There are also issues where people ask why it is that it is legal for men to go topless, yet is criminal for women to go topless? Should not the law apply equally to both men and women? That is a reasonable question and there is no answer that justifies this discrimination that is not intrinsically sexist.

Here in New York City, both men and women are permitted to go topless.

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#46

Post by gruseom »

phren0logy wrote: post #37
gruseom wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The article implies that it's more than 5x as expensive to house the mentally ill in jail than elsewhere. Such a huge difference suggests that providing them with housing and care would more than pay for itself, so cost ought not to be an issue. I realize that's oversimplifying--for one thing, total cost to society is not the same as costs (and income!) to different institutions--but do you think it's basically correct? If so, where in your view are the obstacles really coming from: moral ideas about criminality and illness? institutional politics? for-profit industry? etc.

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#47

Post by yareally »

saturdayplace wrote: post #39
yareally wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 valuab…

Thanks for your reply. I agree there's quite a few things that I would flag myself if I could (I coincidentally lost the ability from flagging too many in a short amount of time). I would ask for it back, but I am afraid I would lose it again and honestly, it ate up a lot of time I could use for something else. In lieu of that, I just try to upvote new content more that has substance.

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#48

Post by Daniel_Newby »

droithomme wrote: post #20

The 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…

> In a fabulously wealthy nation, how is it that she has come to need to shoplift food to be able to eat.

She is crazy. A sane poor American can get food from any number of government programs, private charities, begging, or working a couple of hours a day at nearly any job.

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#49

Post by jotm »

smtddr wrote: post #26
droithomme wrote: post #20

The 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…

Oh come on, it's not like people will start walking around naked just because...

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#50

Post by sliverstorm »

rhizome wrote: post #42
sliverstorm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

(e.g., sanitation) Really? Is there even a single documented case of a sanitation problem caused by mere nudity?

It would be hard to document such cases, when public nudity has been restricted for thousands of years.

You should not have to stretch your imagination, however, to figure out all the possible transmission vectors.

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