How does jail/prison over mental health hospitalization make any sense?

[IHaveRespawned]

For the span of many years, jails and prisons have become the defacto mental health institutions. Corrections officers have minimal training and experience dealing with or treating people with mental illness. The mentally ill often wind up being abused, manhandled, assaulted, and after release, they end up right back. It is a vicious cycle.

There are most certainly evil people who commit heneous acts that most certainly should be locked up (or even executed for that matter), although many incidents can be prevented by having adequate access to mental health treatment. Severe mental illness should be considered a public safety issue, not just a personal health issue. Instead, we spend billions incarcerating the mentally ill on the taxpayer dime for them to be released on the streets to commit disorderly conduct and/or other more serious offenses.

Mental healthcare is difficult to come by, and mounting copays and out-of-pocket expenses for those needing more frequent and consistent care is straining, leaving many to go without much-needed treatment to maintain safety for themselves and others.

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9 mo

I will say, what you are seeing with all this gender dysphoria, psychotic meltdowns, and people snapping and going apeshit is mounting and deeply rooted mental health issues. The leftists want to blame the guns and turn a blind eye to the people pulling the trigger; the right either claims it is an issue and doesn't do anything or just wants to "off" these people and be done.

[msc545]

Of course I agree with you. I have worked in a maximum security prison and also worked and continue to work and beyond staff at many different mental institutions. The difference is like night and day for multiple reasons. The people that staff mental institutions are highly trained from the nurses all the way up to the doctors and it shows in the excellence of their work and they're compassionate and ethical behavior. The folks that work in prisons mostly correctional officers or guards as the term goes or a mixed bag of sadists and compassionate people and men who just see it as another job. And fairness the inmates also tend to be difficult and angry and sometimes dangerous and there is no picnic working with them there is no pretense at mental health treatment in most prisons in the word rehabilitation in the title of the agency that administers the prison is just performative at best.

The most likely person to wind up in a prison is going to be the common criminal, but there are people who wind up in prisons that also have severe mental illness. Thus my employment at such a place a couple of years.

In the United States, there is a persistent belief that taking vengeance against prisoners is far more important than treating them for mental illness which results in a very high recidivism rate generally in excess of 70% in more enlightened countries such as Norway. The recidivism rate is a fraction of this because Norway is a more civilized country with more civilized practices.

[WindAtMyBack]

They broke the law. Being mentally ill doesn't change that.

Hospitalization for being mentally ill? What is that going to accomplish? It's not like they have good quality treatment for mental illnesses. Treatment is still only a half step above witchcraft. Maybe some day there will be some good science to truly treat mental illnesses, but we ain't there yet.

Forced hospitalization is still basically jail. It's just a jail where they drug people up, then release them. Only to end up doing the same thing over again.

[IHaveRespawned]

That is what I am saying. The whole deinstitutionalization movement shut down long-term programs. They now just medicate you heavily, babysit you for a week, then release you back wherever without any (or very minimal) aftercare plans. I have been through this numerous times. It is a money scheme and those released can easily end up right back. This desperately needs reform.

Jails, prisons, and each individual inmate costs money. Correctional officers have very minimal training or experience dealing with mentally ill. Their "best" course of action is to tackle, beat, put you in a restraint chair, or throw you in solitary. These jails and prisons have become the defacto long-term mental health "hospitals".

https://youtu.be/EaIbYv78gSY?si=cwA9df6ZXIg8aV28

This autistic young man died in the hands of correctional staff. This is a heartbreaking story that never gained national attention.

[OlderAndWiser]

Being mentally ill does not mean that someone is not responsible for their own actions. Put someone in a mental hospital and most will be released within 2 weeks. Put them in jail or prison and they may be (rightfully) locked away for years.

[IHaveRespawned]

I am talking about long term programs. Not the worthless impatient hospitalizations we have now where they medicate them and babysit them for a week and just release them with no follow up. That is seriously the shit that is happening today.

[OlderAndWiser]

I worked in a psych hospital for six years before i went to law school. Liberals don’t want us to keep mentally ill people locked up, so we release them and they live under bridges.

[exitseven]

It would probably be more cost effective to treat the mentally ill or at least lock them up in a mental hospital.

[DrPepper12]

Lol. USA America doesn't even have physical health care let alone mental. It's a Hobbesian dystopia Darwin would admire compliments of MAGA

[IHaveRespawned]

At least Trump has mentioned numerous times about bringing back mental institutions.

[DrPepper12]

And IVF, doge checks, carried interest, 5013C orgs, sharks that fight batteries, studio 54, noise cancer, rivers with taps and raping women.

[Dargil]

So what do you propose?