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In the US we used to have such institutionalization. That disappeared when the country elected Reagan. https://sites.psu.edu/psy533wheeler/2017/02/08/u01-rona

In the US we used to have such institutionalization. That disappeared when the country elected Reagan. https://sites.psu.edu/psy533wheeler/2017/02/08/u01-ronald-reagan-and-the-federal-deinstitutionalization-of-mentally-ill-patients/comment-page-1/ https://sites.psu.edu/psy533wheeler/2017/02/08/u01-ronald-re...

CryptoPunk 6y ago
That started to disappear long before Reagan. The deinstitutionalization movement was a left-wing one that started in the 60s. It was also not entirely without merit. The abuse that still happens in these types of institutions is obscene. Even elderly care homes, where the patients are not confined to the facility against their will, are rife with abuse. The alternative to that abuse we now see is much worse, with thousands upon thousands of the drug-using homeless dead from overdoses. But I think we can do better than abusive institutions, and the current activist-spawned free-for-all, where the mentally ill have no boundaries imposed on them.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >The abuse that still happens in these types of institutions is obscene. I would like to see some good studies on this. I do wonder if the scale of the problem was really as large as you make it out to be. I suspect not. It also raises the question why not simply implement better policy and better oversight, instead of wholesale closure, which as you argued, is much worse.
macspoofing 6y ago
Two issues with that. Deinstitutionalisation was not just an American phenomenon, with similar movements in other Western countries. Second, the timeline doesn't line-up. By the 1980s Deinstitutionalisation was well underway, and it wasn't necessarily a federal driver because the states were the ones running the system. Deinstitutionalisation was a combination of changing attitudes by public (hollywood movies certainly did not help with movies like 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'), activism, courts strengthening rights to the point where institutionalization was not possible, and yes, cost cutting by States.

CryptoPunk 6y ago

That started to disappear long before Reagan. The deinstitutionalization movement was a left-wing one that started in the 60s. It was also not entirely without merit. The abuse that still happens in these types of institutions is obscene. Even elderly care homes, where the patients are not confined to the facility against their will, are rife with abuse. The alternative to that abuse we now see is much worse, with thousands upon thousands of the drug-using homeless dead from overdoses. But I think we can do better than abusive institutions, and the current activist-spawned free-for-all, where the mentally ill have no boundaries imposed on them.

macspoofing 6y ago
>The abuse that still happens in these types of institutions is obscene. I would like to see some good studies on this. I do wonder if the scale of the problem was really as large as you make it out to be. I suspect not. It also raises the question why not simply implement better policy and better oversight, instead of wholesale closure, which as you argued, is much worse.

macspoofing 6y ago

Two issues with that. Deinstitutionalisation was not just an American phenomenon, with similar movements in other Western countries. Second, the timeline doesn't line-up. By the 1980s Deinstitutionalisation was well underway, and it wasn't necessarily a federal driver because the states were the ones running the system. Deinstitutionalisation was a combination of changing attitudes by public (hollywood movies certainly did not help with movies like 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'), activism, courts strengthening rights to the point where institutionalization was not possible, and yes, cost cutting by States.