I was on vacation last week, went to the Puget Sound area in Washington. Downtown Seattle has the usual homeless people wandering around like most cities in the U.S.. We went to Victoria BC in Canada one afternoon. No homeless beggars threatening the pedestrians. Crazy Canadians and their healthcare system, getting the mentally ill off the streets.
The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
71–80 of 82 posts
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 i…
Involuntary commitment is the reality for many people. Sometimes the delusions recede enough that they recognize they are ill.
I would encourage you to look for a support group for family members. Sometimes it helps to know other people are struggling with the same issues, and see how they cope with those issues when there's not a solution.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#73I was on vacation last week, went to the Puget Sound area in Washington. Downtown Seattle has the usual homeless people wandering around like most cities in the U.S.. We went to Victoria BC in Canada one afternoon. No homeless beggars threatening the pedestrians. Crazy Canadians and their healthcare system, getting the mentally ill off the streets.
So you're comparing a major US city of 3.4M people (greater Seattle area) to a small Canadian city of 344K (greater Victoria area)?
I've lived in several major Canadian cities during my lifetime and the homeless problem is huge, particularly in Vancouver. Universal healthcare doesn't do much if the person refuses treatment.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 pre…
All those actions you stated have a consequence for some other than the primary participant.
Killing someone derives them or life, theft of a possession, beating an animal hurts the animal.
Public Nudity may not be comfortable to you but what's the consequence beyond that?
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
The idea of clothing isn't quite universal, but nearly so. Still, we're something of an outlier in how serious our nudity taboo is. As far as I can tell most cultures are ok with women going around topless and most think that it's ok for men and women to see each other naked when bathing, though I guess Hollywood is changing that.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 pre…
All those actions you stated have a consequence for some other than the primary participant. Killing someone derives them or life, theft of a possession, beating an animal hurts the animal. Public Nudity may not be comfortable to you but what's the consequence beyond that?
Seeing naked people in public hurts most people.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#77The 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…
> The problem is that folks who won't say on medication disrupt and deny everyone from accessing public resources.
The problem is that the move to community based care was a move to say individuals have to do the work themselves and should expect no help from the community. If we were serious about better outcomes for people with mental disabilities, health and domestic care would be free for those that use those services.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Not true in the slightest. Ancient Greece and Rome all the way up untill the Holy Roman Empire had no problems with homosexuality especially when it was citizens against members of the lower classes.
Homosexuality was quite common and accepted in Europe until the widespread adoption of Christianity.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 pre…
For beating animals you might be right. I don't think so, but maybe you are right. For the rest you are not.
Also you somehow see to confuse moral and ethical. Moral is "Eww, that's itchy." For example sodomy. Ethics are a reflection and systematization of the first. The latter is abstract.
There are no universal ethics. But several sound systems. Kant's Categorical imperative, several utilitarianism. Hell even Hedonism is ethics and IMO a way better than morals.
But all these have in common they do give explanations and justifications, unlike morals. Morals is just "that's nothing one should do" or "We never did that." And I can't see a ethics that would demand the criminalization of public nudity. However it is very easy to reduce to criminalization of killing and theft to a sound first principle. And IMO only these first principles are important enough to force them upon others.
Re: The costly criminalisation of the mentally ill
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
From what I know of the time, it wasn't just an imperfect system, it was an imperfect system with rampant opportunities for abuse.
Have you ever read about the Magdalene Asylums?
To my knowledge it wasn't the less-than-perfect parts of institutionalization that caused us to get rid of them, it was the abuse of aspects of those systems that caused us to abandon them, and thus it is the abuse of those systems to which we should probably compare our current solution.
One possible missed opportunity of course- institutionalization has been marked, and may never be seriously considered again. Yet it's possible with sufficient oversight it could be a useful system.