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There’s nothing contradictory with compulsory psychiatry, providing housing, and ending the war on drugs. The US’ hardcore line on drugs has clearly been an abj

There’s nothing contradictory with compulsory psychiatry, providing housing, and ending the war on drugs. The US’ hardcore line on drugs has clearly been an abject failure and its time to reverse the damage we’ve done before its too late.

nverno 4y ago
It's gotten a whole lot better since the 90's, but still a long way to go.
luckylion 4y ago
Compulsory psychiatry is controversial, though. While "Housing First" (and potentially with some unconditionality attached) is controversial on the right, compulsory psychiatry is controversial on the left (and I think more so than Housing First on the right).
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  In the US, I guarantee that compulsory psychiatry would become corrupt in just a couple of years. You'd find people being sent to institutions for the mildest of infractions. Back in the 1970s, there was a movie I watched, starring Alan Arkin, called The Other Side of Hell[0]. It was modeled on The Patuxent Institution[1], which has known some controversy[2]. There's a story (I think the movie references it), where someone was admitted for thirty days, for losing their shit at a traffic stop, and ended up doing thirty years. It's a Real Bad Place. I met someone that did nine years, there, but he earned it. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078043/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078043/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patuxent_Institution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patuxent_Institution [2] https://www.petition2congress.com/ctas/citizens-against-cruel-unusual-punishment-at-patuxent-institution https://www.petition2congress.com/ctas/citizens-against-crue...
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Yeah, Germany has had similar cases, and then of course there's the Rosenhan Experiment [0]. That's why it's controversial. Housing First is controversial because it, too, will be corrupted if there's no additional action, and will mostly become the housing component of a UBI, likely with significantly higher costs as some people will not be able to function in the provided housing, damage it, and at the same time have the right to an undamaged home. Putting people behind bars is less controversial on the right, spending the budget on social causes for eternity is less controversial on the left. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      > some people will not be able to function in the provided housing, damage it, and at the same time have the right to an undamaged home. At some point along that path, it seems reasonable for a society to say “okay, your next home is one that you cannot damage with lots of sturdy metal and concrete furnishings”.
      - feet 4y ago
        But why would that sturdy building need to be a prison? Why can't we just build sturdy housing that's difficult to damage?
        sokoloff 4y ago
        It doesn't need to be a prison. That's why I phrased it as I did, but if you tear up two public houses and society says you have a right to a third, that third should be indestructible even if that means it's less comfortable than the ones afforded to people who manage to care for them properly.
        bombcar 4y ago
        Partially because it is super expensive; no doubt it could be made somewhat cheaper but the cost of even a normal "jail cell" is quite high compared to a stick-built building. But "jails without locked doors" would be a good middle ground. Provide security like a jail, but the "inmates" are free to come and go.
  - brezelgoring 4y ago
    Jon Ronson, a journalist, told a story[0] about a guy he interviewed in an Asylum that had pretended to be crazy to get out of a minor crime (I think shoplifting). The promise to the Judge was, you do a month of psych ward, get some counseling, and get out. "Sweet!" he said, "Better than doing a year in the can for stealing". His psychiatrist branded him a sociopath and put him on some pills that he, a liar, didn't need. They changed him for the worse, a sane man entered the asylum and day after day he was turning into a raving lunatic. "I'm not crazy!", he said - but that was only more fuel for the doctors, as it was clearly something a crazy man would say to get out. The attitude around here was that if you yelled, you got more pills, maybe a beating by an angry male nurse too. If you stay quiet, you don't get out. "I don't need any of this! I was pretending! Please let me out!" he cried. The nurses held him back and tossed him back into a padded room. As they dragged him, he kicked and screamed that he was not crazy and didn't need help, but it was all pointless. His psychiatrist later told Jon that the alternative was worse, that he was a liar, a pretender, and someone that willingly gets in here for any reason clearly belongs in the bobby hatch. He would never get out again. Jon met him on his 18th year in the tin, he clearly wasn't right in the head when they talked, the pills, electroshock sessions and pointless talks with the Psychiatrist every week had clearly sapped this man of any energy he might have once had. He was a ghost of a man now, hunched, old and weak. What a punishment for stealing a can of beans. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYemnKEKx0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYemnKEKx0c Don't yell at me if I don't get the details right, I doubt it matters if he stole a can of beans or a bottle of whisky.
  - NoGravitas 4y ago
    > In the US, I guarantee that compulsory psychiatry would become corrupt in just a couple of years. We already have court-ordered private drug and alcohol recovery programs (offered as an alternative to jail time) renting out their patients as unpaid labor to, eg, chicken processing plants and offering no actual treatment.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
      I wouldn't mind seeing a citation on that. I am quite aware that the rehab/detox industry has some very shady actors, but I've not heard that.
      - NoGravitas 4y ago
        Here's the link to the article I read on it: https://revealnews.org/article/they-thought-they-were-going-to-rehab-they-ended-up-in-chicken-plants/ https://revealnews.org/article/they-thought-they-were-going-...
        ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
        Thanks. Sounds like an ugly place, but I doubt there's too many places like it. Addicts in early Recovery are not an especially reliable workforce. I think that SynAnon was like that, in the early days. The problem with addicts, is that society hates them, so it's fairly easy to do what you want with them. Also, a lot of rehabs and detoxes are run by addicts, and many of them have not progressed too far in Recovery, themselves.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  Compulsory psychiatric treatment sounds insane, to me. Compulsory drug treatment amounts to assault, and "compulsory psychotherapy" isn't a thing - the patient has to want to engage with the treatment, or they're not really being treated.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Without those, the only remaining compulsory treatment is prison, or banishment. And we're out of frontiers to banish people to.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      You seem to have overlooked: - Community service - Fines - Curfews - Binding-over - Suspended sentences Those are the alternatives that leap to mind; i'm sure there are many more choices for sentencing magistrates.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        We're assuming a homeless person who is uncooperative; why would they suddenly start cooperating over fines, et al?
        denton-scratch 4y ago
        They could be a law-abiding homeless person. You know: someone like you, maybe, that lost their home to their wife in a nasty divorce. Or maybe they comply with the court's orders, because they don't want more severe sanctions? Fact is, some states seem to manage without throwing people in the can as soon as possible; some states use incarceration as a last resort. [Sorry, upthread person; I wasn't trained on US constitution. As far as I'm concerned, jail, prison, penitentiary, reform school are all the same as incarceration. At least for the purposes of this discussion.]
        bombcar 4y ago

nverno 4y ago

It's gotten a whole lot better since the 90's, but still a long way to go.

luckylion 4y ago

Compulsory psychiatry is controversial, though. While "Housing First" (and potentially with some unconditionality attached) is controversial on the right, compulsory psychiatry is controversial on the left (and I think more so than Housing First on the right).

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
In the US, I guarantee that compulsory psychiatry would become corrupt in just a couple of years. You'd find people being sent to institutions for the mildest of infractions. Back in the 1970s, there was a movie I watched, starring Alan Arkin, called The Other Side of Hell[0]. It was modeled on The Patuxent Institution[1], which has known some controversy[2]. There's a story (I think the movie references it), where someone was admitted for thirty days, for losing their shit at a traffic stop, and ended up doing thirty years. It's a Real Bad Place. I met someone that did nine years, there, but he earned it. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078043/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078043/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patuxent_Institution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patuxent_Institution [2] https://www.petition2congress.com/ctas/citizens-against-cruel-unusual-punishment-at-patuxent-institution https://www.petition2congress.com/ctas/citizens-against-crue...
- luckylion 4y ago
  Yeah, Germany has had similar cases, and then of course there's the Rosenhan Experiment [0]. That's why it's controversial. Housing First is controversial because it, too, will be corrupted if there's no additional action, and will mostly become the housing component of a UBI, likely with significantly higher costs as some people will not be able to function in the provided housing, damage it, and at the same time have the right to an undamaged home. Putting people behind bars is less controversial on the right, spending the budget on social causes for eternity is less controversial on the left. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    > some people will not be able to function in the provided housing, damage it, and at the same time have the right to an undamaged home. At some point along that path, it seems reasonable for a society to say “okay, your next home is one that you cannot damage with lots of sturdy metal and concrete furnishings”.
    - feet 4y ago
      But why would that sturdy building need to be a prison? Why can't we just build sturdy housing that's difficult to damage?
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        It doesn't need to be a prison. That's why I phrased it as I did, but if you tear up two public houses and society says you have a right to a third, that third should be indestructible even if that means it's less comfortable than the ones afforded to people who manage to care for them properly.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Partially because it is super expensive; no doubt it could be made somewhat cheaper but the cost of even a normal "jail cell" is quite high compared to a stick-built building. But "jails without locked doors" would be a good middle ground. Provide security like a jail, but the "inmates" are free to come and go.
- brezelgoring 4y ago
  Jon Ronson, a journalist, told a story[0] about a guy he interviewed in an Asylum that had pretended to be crazy to get out of a minor crime (I think shoplifting). The promise to the Judge was, you do a month of psych ward, get some counseling, and get out. "Sweet!" he said, "Better than doing a year in the can for stealing". His psychiatrist branded him a sociopath and put him on some pills that he, a liar, didn't need. They changed him for the worse, a sane man entered the asylum and day after day he was turning into a raving lunatic. "I'm not crazy!", he said - but that was only more fuel for the doctors, as it was clearly something a crazy man would say to get out. The attitude around here was that if you yelled, you got more pills, maybe a beating by an angry male nurse too. If you stay quiet, you don't get out. "I don't need any of this! I was pretending! Please let me out!" he cried. The nurses held him back and tossed him back into a padded room. As they dragged him, he kicked and screamed that he was not crazy and didn't need help, but it was all pointless. His psychiatrist later told Jon that the alternative was worse, that he was a liar, a pretender, and someone that willingly gets in here for any reason clearly belongs in the bobby hatch. He would never get out again. Jon met him on his 18th year in the tin, he clearly wasn't right in the head when they talked, the pills, electroshock sessions and pointless talks with the Psychiatrist every week had clearly sapped this man of any energy he might have once had. He was a ghost of a man now, hunched, old and weak. What a punishment for stealing a can of beans. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYemnKEKx0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYemnKEKx0c Don't yell at me if I don't get the details right, I doubt it matters if he stole a can of beans or a bottle of whisky.
- NoGravitas 4y ago
  > In the US, I guarantee that compulsory psychiatry would become corrupt in just a couple of years. We already have court-ordered private drug and alcohol recovery programs (offered as an alternative to jail time) renting out their patients as unpaid labor to, eg, chicken processing plants and offering no actual treatment.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    I wouldn't mind seeing a citation on that. I am quite aware that the rehab/detox industry has some very shady actors, but I've not heard that.
    - NoGravitas 4y ago
      Here's the link to the article I read on it: https://revealnews.org/article/they-thought-they-were-going-to-rehab-they-ended-up-in-chicken-plants/ https://revealnews.org/article/they-thought-they-were-going-...
      - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
        Thanks. Sounds like an ugly place, but I doubt there's too many places like it. Addicts in early Recovery are not an especially reliable workforce. I think that SynAnon was like that, in the early days. The problem with addicts, is that society hates them, so it's fairly easy to do what you want with them. Also, a lot of rehabs and detoxes are run by addicts, and many of them have not progressed too far in Recovery, themselves.
denton-scratch 4y ago
Compulsory psychiatric treatment sounds insane, to me. Compulsory drug treatment amounts to assault, and "compulsory psychotherapy" isn't a thing - the patient has to want to engage with the treatment, or they're not really being treated.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Without those, the only remaining compulsory treatment is prison, or banishment. And we're out of frontiers to banish people to.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    You seem to have overlooked: - Community service - Fines - Curfews - Binding-over - Suspended sentences Those are the alternatives that leap to mind; i'm sure there are many more choices for sentencing magistrates.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      We're assuming a homeless person who is uncooperative; why would they suddenly start cooperating over fines, et al?
      - denton-scratch 4y ago
        They could be a law-abiding homeless person. You know: someone like you, maybe, that lost their home to their wife in a nasty divorce. Or maybe they comply with the court's orders, because they don't want more severe sanctions? Fact is, some states seem to manage without throwing people in the can as soon as possible; some states use incarceration as a last resort. [Sorry, upthread person; I wasn't trained on US constitution. As far as I'm concerned, jail, prison, penitentiary, reform school are all the same as incarceration. At least for the purposes of this discussion.]
        bombcar 4y ago