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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

#61

Post by lmm »

qq66 wrote: post #28
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…

Public nudity has been taboo since long before we had governments and laws. Even uncontacted peoples generally cover their genitalia even if they are otherwise totally naked. Regardless of first-principles freedom-based arguments, US legislators did not create proscriptions against public nudity and they are not going to be able to eliminate them.

Homosexuality was treated similarly negatively in much of the world and much of human history, but US legislators have managed to move away from it being illegal.

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#62

Post by lmm »

maratd wrote: post #16
saturdayplace wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It concerns me. This discussion should not be on hacker news. These opinions are not mutually exclusive. Flagged the story.

> 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?

plastic.com used to be a good place for such, though I fear it may be running out of users.

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#63

Post by flumbaps »

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…

Honestly, I think if public nudity was common, no-one would care about it. When you go to the beach and see people in swimming costumes, there isn't really much left to the imagination. You can already pretty much figure out what they look like naked, but no-one cares, we're all used to it. Society just places a weird importance on nipples and genitals. But just women's nipples. Even though men's nipples kind of look the same anyway. You could take a swimsuit catalogue and cut the nipples off the men and glue them onto the women and turn it into porn.

If you think about it, we're just animals. It's really crazy that we can't just walk around in our natural state freely because we tend to feel really weird about looking at other members of our own species.

What if I've got it backwards and other animals are just as prudish? When a dog is barking at another dog, maybe he's really saying, "hey, check out this weirdo - he's naked! Get the hell out of here, you pervert!"

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#64

Post by coldarchon »

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.

I dont think you understand mentally illness. She doesnt care who owns anything, whatever she perceives and gets the urge to take, she just takes. There is no understanding in her head for this. And you dont understand this as well ..

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#65

Post by sunglasses »

flumbaps wrote: post #63
smtddr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Honestly, I think if public nudity was common, no-one would care about it. When you go to the beach and see people in swimming costumes, there isn't really much left to the imagination. You can already pretty much figure out what they look like naked, but no-one cares, we're all used to it. Society just places a weird importance on nipples and genitals. But just women's nipples. Even though men's nipples kind of look…

"swimming costumes"... are you British? :)

But yes, this apprehension of nudity is something I've always found so bizarre. Why is seeing skin of our species such a big deal? At what point of our social evolution did it evolve that way (because the idea of clothing is pretty universal to humans).

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#66

Post by ljf »

DanBC wrote: post #55
gruseom wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 corre…

Look at the outrage caused to some people when we suggest that someone's life should be saved with free-at-the-point-of-delivery health care. Now apply that to giving people adequate care in the community and see heads explode.

I know it's so hard, even in the UK people get upset 'Why does this inner city youth club get X benefit' 'Why are we sending X troubled child to X holiday camp for the summer'

'Why doesn't my child get these things?' is often the question, but the answer that these things are put in place to try and reduce future potential crime and other societal damage are not things that a lot of people want to consider - I'm spending money now to negate possible risk in the future?

I can't find the report now, but there was an interesting experiment in London. In the UK the average homeless person costs the state around £26,000 (http://homeless.org.uk/costs-homelessness#.UgTa1Y3qlNQ) or even more in London.

A charity was able to get £5000 per homeless person from a corporate donation, and offered this money directly to 100 homeless people, with the only previsions being that they did not get to handle the cash directly and that everything they spent money on helping them get off the street.

Obviously this was a self selecting group (people that wanted to leave rough sleeping), but the following year a stunning proportion of those who had taken part had been able to turn their lives around.

Should there be a buffer to help people turn their lives around and stop them costing the state money? I'm all for it, but I have no idea how we could stop abuse of the system. We could start by trialling the idea out though, with money saved by stopping people and companies avoiding paying their taxes (some £16billion lost each year in the UK: http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Documents/500000Final.pdf )

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#67

Post by crusso »

Spooky23 wrote: post #35
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…

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 move…

because it was cruel and ineffective

As Dr. Phil would say, "How's that working out for ya?"

It was a classic case of people wanting to be litigious or do-gooders and making the situation much worse than it already was rather than accepting the best option that was available.

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#68

Post by tjic »

fosap wrote: post #24
sliverstorm wrote: post #23

Earlier 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.

> Public nudity is mere morals.

So are laws against killing people, theft, and beating animals.

I'm always dismayed at people who think that the "good" ethical norms that they like are somehow scientific, universally agreed upon, and absolute, whereas the "bad" ethical norms that other people have are merely cultural, subjective, and contingent.

We could do worse than to require a few years of ethical theory as a precondition to graduating high school.

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#69

Post by tjic »

fsck--off wrote: post #45
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.

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anatole_France

Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill

#70

Post by DrStalker »

flumbaps wrote: post #63
smtddr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Honestly, I think if public nudity was common, no-one would care about it. When you go to the beach and see people in swimming costumes, there isn't really much left to the imagination. You can already pretty much figure out what they look like naked, but no-one cares, we're all used to it. Society just places a weird importance on nipples and genitals. But just women's nipples. Even though men's nipples kind of look…

If you want an idea of what the imagination can fill in when someone is in a swimming costume look up "bubbling"; the examples here will show you how it works:

http://gizmodo.com/5627807/bubbling-tricks-your-mind-to-make...

Link is technically safe for work but looks NSFW (that being the entire point of the illusion)

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