Slashdot Mirror
A Review of the "Mental Illness" Definition Might Prevent Crime
An anonymous reader writes "Following a BBC report showing abnormal variation in the number of people taken into police custody with mental health problems, concerns have been raised about the legal definition of "mental illness". Prof. Steve Fuller argues that a much sharper legal distinction is required to ensure criminals with mental disorders are not released without appropriate treatment. Fuller distinguishes between two cases: a 'client', who pays a therapist and enjoys a liberal, level-playing field in face-to-face interactions, and a 'patient' who is being treated by a doctor for a particular disorder. If the former relationship cannot be established due to person's mental state, then the latter one should be enforced. Thus, Fuller calls for 'a return to institutions analogous to the asylums of the early 19th century.'"
I'm kinda bored and it's a slow news day. Let's do "jail the crazies".
Plus there was that Canadian citizen who was blocked from air travel through a US airport (wasn't even stopping in the US) just because Canadian law enforcement had passed on to US Customs and Border Protection information about an mental illness related interaction she had with the Canadian police.
There's some deep issues here.
The US had a lot of mental wards in the past but the ACLU sued them out of existence in the 60s and 70s. The mental health got a big boost back the in 50s with the discovery of tranquilizer so the ACLU felt that people could be released to home or local care with the use of tranquilizers. So the lawsuits began with getting them out and keeping them out. The mental health wards started to close in the late 70s and early 80s since there was no more patients. So now the law in the US means you can not be committed until you are a danger to society, ie commit a crime. This is why you end up with people with mental illness in jails instead of hospitals. Take the example of Jared Lee Loughner who shot and killed people in Arizona. He had mental problems but the school couldn't do anything to commit him without more problems arising. His parents couldn't commit him without his consent. When did he get committed? When he killed people. People want to make sure people are not committed for the wrong reason and this is the result of going the other end of the spectrum. A balance in the middle is needed but the ACLU is not going to back down.
I do not think that having mental problems in Great Britain is a good idea: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516270/Pregnant-woman-unborn-baby-girl-forcibly-removed-caesarean-social-workers-obtain-court-order-suffered-mental-breakdown.html
They've sent her to the hospital, drugged her, cut her baby out of her and gave away the baby of this italian mother for adoption in the UK because even though she is on medication and made a full recovery she might one day have mental problems again. The baby will not even grow up in italy.
Just wow.
There's a base assumption at play here that makes the addressing the issue at hand much more murkier than it should be.
Psychiatry sees all mental health problems as, in root, organic in nature. In other words, there is a chemical imbalance, a brain trauma, or a genetic component that creates the symptoms. These mental health issues can be seen as "cured" through medical regimes, but, many other illnesses, considered under remission, since a chemical imbalance caused by a genetic component cannot be "cured". The DSM (V is the latest incarnation) uses symptomatic observations as base criteria - not necessarily biological markers, but medical therapy is based on biomarkers (for example, a regulation in serotonin uptake). While this is a gross oversimplification of the matter, it paints a general picture of what happens with the organic position of mental illnesses. In a very simple word, psychiatry views mental illnesses as a nature problem.
Psychology, on the other hand, does not see all "mental illnesses" (as defined in the DSM) as organic in nature. As swillden mentioned, psychotherapy (of which there are many intervention methods) assist in managing the situation. Much of it takes root in mindfulness - not only in a social perspective, but also a reframing and re-internalization of current and past events. Others might take a family based approach, not only in dealing with the specific issues the primary client is dealing with, but also how their immediate social structure responds to their condition. CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) *might* go a step further and integrate neuroscience to determine if there is a biological component to their client's condition (but this tendency is still far and few between, considering the cost, the protocols required, and the length of time). Depending of the epistemological perspective of psychology, psychologists don't "cure", because the client isn't sick, they are maladjusted (through previous rationalizations or emotional internalizations of events and situations). Using a similar oversimplification, psychology sees many mental illnesses (note: not all) as a nurture problem (a learning/behavioral problem that has both an individual and social/cultural component).
There is a grey point in between these two, apparently competing points of view, which come up often in these discussions. What happens with schizophrenia? Or with a catatonic patient? A medical regime may assist in managing the symptoms, but without some measure of psychotherapy, the person will have a much harder time dealing with their inner situation. I doubt that something like psychoanalysis (or tools from psychodynamics) will work well, but perhaps a cognitive behavioral intervention might have a better success rate. Or even some of the tools from the Humanistic school of thought can help.
I am the Spirit within The Machine.
How long until "disagreeing with the politics of the ruling party" becomes a mental illness?
Perhaps, but more likely is how long before we start lowering the threshold for which someone requires "help". Especially if the facilities were private, which is 99% certain these days.
In 2008 in Pennsylvania two judges were convicted of accepting bribes from Robert Mericle, who owned private youth detention facilities. In return, they would sentence kids to incarceration in his facilities for such heinous crimes as shoplifting a DVD from Wal-Mart, trespassing, or in one case making a video on Myspace mocking the principle of a school.
Considering that mental health is so subjective and still poorly understood, could you imagine the amount of abuse that would occur? I would measure in seconds the time between such a facility opening and doctors being bribed to incarcerate patients, "for their own good".
This is a problem which has become endemic in private prisons. When it becomes profitable to incarcerate someone, the last real barrier to simply incarcerating anyone deemed undesirable is removed.
It has been long argued that drug laws in the US are mainly only used to convict unemployed, poor and predominantly black men in large cities, for whom there are few prospects and no jobs. With meth, this has extended to white people in the same position, in the same way opium laws did to the Chinese in the past.
How long before a new system of mental health facilities serve precisely the same purpose?
I have to disagree... If I get strep or pneumonia, they give me a z-pack and bam, it magically goes away. If I have a broken finger, they give me vicodin and bam, I magically don't care about the pain (though yes, the finger itself just takes time to heal). If I have insomnia, they give me ambien and bam, I can magically sleep again. When my knees or hips eventually wear out, they give me new ones and bam, I magically get to walk for another 20-30 years. And keep in mind that many of our "magic bullets" work on a larger scale and longer term scale - Vaccination, water sterilization, sewage treatment, annual physicals, etc.
Wow - great response. Thanks for that!
They already abuse it for convicted sex offenders. Some courts are using involuntary commitment rules to extend prison terms indefinitely. After they serve out their (usually long) sentence in prison, they are placed in a psychiatric facility until someone somewhere arbitrarily decides they're okay. Indefinite detention beyond the statutory limits on sentencing.
The US wouldn't have that problem and i'll tell you why. They probably had socialized medicine and it was normal to have doctors just see someone on the government's dime. That would never happen here, lol.
Umm, "never happen here" you say, and with a laugh?
Let me cure that memory hole for you.
https://www.rutherford.org/key_cases/key_cases_brandon_raub/
You owe me an internets. :)
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
At least on the federal level, it's trivial to prove (unless you're a shill for the War on Drugs):
"The most serious charge against 51 percent of [federal prison] inmates is a drug offense. Only four percent are in for robbery and only one percent are in for homicide."
(source)