6 ms·

They also do a lot of compulsory psychiatric detention: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychiatric-bulletin/article/compulsory-psychiatric-detention-an

• timewizard 2y ago
  "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" does not automatically mean "good, moral, and upstanding lifestyle." To the extent that people have a natural right to exist and society does not I think it should be contingent on administrators to prove the standard they're applying is actually reasonable and non discriminatory.
  • ty6853 2y ago
    The standard ought to be they have or imminently are going to harm others. Like actually harm a real victim, criminally by violence or taking property. If they want to live in a gutter worshipping lizard king, well, not everyone has the same idea of the pursuit of happiness.
    • lern_too_spel 2y ago
      As a society building a public space, do we not get a say in how it's used? If you cannot find a place to live without blocking a sidewalk, one will be provided for you. That place will not let you take hard drugs indefinitely.
  • gotoeleven 2y ago
    What about babies and children? What about enfeebled old people? Clearly some people can't take care of themselves. Presumably you don't think babies and alzheimers patients should be left to roam free. Why are severely mentally ill people any different?
    • simoncion 2y ago
      I might be misunderstanding what timewizard is saying, but it seem to me that they're saying "One doesn't need to lead a good, moral, and upstanding lifestyle to qualify for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's just what you get for being alive.".
    • timewizard 2y ago
      Is there something unreasonable or discriminatory in taking care of children and elderly in need? I'm not sure what I said that would lead you to this uncharitable conclusion. Of course I don't think they should "roam free," but that doesn't mean I think your comparison is fair. Are mentally ill people automatically feeble to the point of requiring full guardianship? If you're not quite sure what I'm getting at then you should examine the practice of institutionalization that used to occur in the United States and all the many great reasons we have not continued with it. Or the many famous examples of writers attempting to become involuntarily committed so they can detail just how difficult it is to get out and prove to these often unaccountable organizations that you are not, in fact, "severely mentally ill." I wonder about the jurisprudence of other nations that use these practices in ways which a US citizen might find decidedly uncomfortable, as was pointed out by the OP, particularly when it comes to the nature of involuntary patient /treatment/ and not just simple social separations for the good of the community.
      • marnett 2y ago
        We aren’t talking about one flew over the cuckoos nest here. We’re talking about people walking around shoeless covered in dirt and open sores talking to themselves or screaming obscenities in public while walking into traffic. They are public safety risks - to the community and themselves. Not to mention it truly is inhumane to let them live like this. You have to realize in threads like this you are likely talking to people that live in a community plagued by this extreme of circumstances. Living in San Francisco I saw what I just described just this afternoon outside my own window… Are you suggesting state guardianship is not warranted in situations like I have mentioned above? Or are you just not aware that in many US cities things truly are this bad?
• lbrito 2y ago
  Edit - ok, I see the mistake. Thanks. "Finland has the highest rates of detention per 100 000 inhabitants, about 214" If by detention you mean incarceration, that is still shy of half of the US rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...
  • verteu 2y ago
    They're referring to psychiatric civil commitment
  • sandworm101 2y ago
    Incarceration and detention are totally different things. Incarceration is generally for things that have already happened. Detention is for things that might happen in the future. A convicted criminal is incarcerated. A dangerous patient is detained to prevent them hurting themselves or others going forwards.
    • mrshadowgoose 2y ago
      Sure sure. The motivations are certainly different. However, in both cases, a conscious person is being confined against their will.
  • tialaramex 2y ago
    No, these aren't criminals. Finland doesn't think mad people have somehow committed a crime, it just won't let them leave. They're detained against their will until the doctors decide they've fixed the problem. Compare the decision not to let your five year old have pudding because she hit her brother and refused to apologise, versus the decision not to let her jump into the tiger pit because she might die. These are both restraints on this kids' freedom, but they come from very different places.
• friend_Fernando 2y ago
  > I should mention that I've seen fairly convincing cross-sectional evidence that homelessness is more related to the housing market than mental illness This is absolutely the right diagnosis. For instance, SROs used to be very affordable.[1] Placing someone into housing was well within the means of local governments and non-profits. In Coppola's 1974 movie The Conversation, a large portion of the titular dialogue is about a homeless person Williams' character spots while walking around a crowded Union Square. That's how much homelessness stood out back then. [1] https://ccsroc.net/s-r-o-hotels-in-san-francisco/ https://ccsroc.net/s-r-o-hotels-in-san-francisco/
  • retrac 2y ago
    Fifty years ago in Ontario, Canada if you were a single adult destitute with no income you would be eligible for general welfare which would pay about $180 a month, when the average rent on 1 bedroom apartment in Toronto was about $150 a month. Today, an adult in the same position gets about $800 while rent is $1300. It used to be possible to afford (slummy) housing at market rates, even for the very poor. Now it is not. It can be viewed either as a housing price issue or an income inadequacy issue.
    • verelo 2y ago
      Fifty years ago Montreal was the business centre of Canada, now that’s Toronto. That $800 rate might actually be more affordable in a less business oriented city, or even Montreal itself since it’s seen a lot of decline in that time. Having said that, there’s zero debate rents are out of control. I own a triplex and every time a unit turns over and i do my research on rent i get a bit shocked. I’ve found myself legitimately concerned how someone can ask for full “market” rate when i know it’s simply not affordable.
      • wat10000 2y ago
        A business center doesn't have to be expensive. That’s made to happen because housing isn’t allowed to be built in sufficient quantity, not a necessary consequence of success.
• nomel 2y ago
  Just for comparison, some data (2011-2018) for some USA states [1], show an even higher number: > In 24 states-accounting for 51.9% of the U.S. population-591,402 emergency involuntary detentions were recorded in 2014, the most recent year with most states reporting, a crude rate of 357 per 100,000. Notably, California with 400/100k. Florida with 900/100k. I think the why would make these numbers more interesting. How many are drug detox/recovery? [1] https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/epdf/10.1176/appi.ps.201900477 https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/epdf/10.1176/appi.ps.201900...
  • mattzito 2y ago
    But by their own admission, other than for two states they don’t uniquely count people, it’s counting admissions. That could skew the numbers meaningfully.
    • giantg2 2y ago
      Yeah, I think this is a big factor. I only know maybe 1 or 2 people who had been committed. They definitely have multiple commitments though. That seems to make sense as it's similar to some other medical issues where once you have one problem there can be second admissions if it's unresolved or encounter secondary issues.
  • xrd 2y ago
    That's fascinating because those percentages almost match exactly the incarceration rates of those two states. Florida imprisons away its problems at double the rate (if they can't just bus them to Oregon).
• bnralt 2y ago
  > edit: I should mention that I've seen fairly convincing cross-sectional evidence that homelessness is more related to the housing market than mental illness: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/homelessness-is-a-housing-prob https://www.ucpress.edu/books/homelessness-is-a-housing-prob... , https://www.nahro.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/NAHRO-Summi https://www.nahro.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/NAHRO-Summi... The problem is that there are very different groups of people we're talking about, so much so that throwing them all under the "homeless" umbrella doesn't make sense. It's like saying car accidents are a traffic design problem, not an alcohol problem. Sure, both things can lead to traffic accidents, but they're pretty different problems. People who temporarily need some assistance to get back on there feet are in a categorically different group than the people who are currently unable to function in society. These are fundamentally different problems. I've seen how D.C. has tried housing first. It's given thousands of individuals free apartments, for life as far as I can tell, some in very expensive areas. It's been an enormous failure, since housing doesn't actually solve the very serious underlying problems that many of these people have. A lot of long-term residents to flee places that were once (comparatively) affordable because of rising crime and violence. The Washington Post has occasionally covered this [1][2]. I watched a neighborhood meeting recently about the issue. The city does wellness checks on the people in the program - but they can just completely ignore them, and nothing happens. Long term residents have been forced out after people in the program have attacked them or threatened to kill them and the city doesn't do anything, and doesn't even remove them from the program. A councilmember was taking part in the meeting, and had nothing to say other than he was looking into ways that the city could provide more help to people in the program. The linked article is bordering on misinformation by not mentioning Finland's compulsory commitment, and also ignoring the failures of housing first in the U.S. like D.C.'s that haven't included that aspect. That's why a lot of these programs end up failing - people try to pick and choose the elements that they want, and ignore necessary elements that they find inconvenient. In the end, that doesn't help anyone. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-housed-the-homeless-in-upscale-apartments-it-hasnt-gone-as-planned/2019/04/16/60c8ab9c-5648-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-housed-t... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/08/dc-paid-housing-chronic-homelessness/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/08/dc-paid-h...
• giantg2 2y ago
  "Finland has the highest rates of detention per 100 000 inhabitants, about 214 compared with 93 in the UK ..." Wow those numbers seem high if they're counting unique people and not admissions and re-admisisons.
  • jillesvangurp 2y ago
    I think there is a bit of nuance to this. The UK also has about 500 or so homeless people per 100000 inabitants. In the US the number of people in prisons is about that number per 100K. On top of their huge homeless problem. There is the brutal reality that the climate in Finland and being homeless are not a great combination in the winter. And the summers are short. Getting people off the streets saves lives. If it's -20 during the night you can either lock people up or collect their corpses in the morning. Most people will seek shelter by themselves or not reject shelter when it is offered to them. But people with serious psychiatric issues, that are maybe a bit self destructive and under the influence of alcohol or drugs are going to have trouble doing rational things. So, yes, Finland does the pragmatic thing here. I don't have good statistics on this but I bet there are more than few corpses being collected in the US and the UK on a yearly basis. I've lived in Finland for a few years. It's a friendly place that is mostly safe and nice to be. There's a level of pragmatism and compassion with much of what they do that other countries could learn from. Including the business of incarcerating people. The US and UK are maybe a bit lacking with that. Finland has prisons and psychiatric wards (not the same thing) of course. But people don't stay in those endlessly. Prison sentences are generally short, and rehabilitation is something they put a lot of effort on. Most crime there relates to people doing stupid shit because they are drunk, mentally ill, etc. The solution usually includes addressing those issues after they serve their shortish prison terms. And with some level of success.
    • skrebbel 2y ago
      > If it's -20 during the night you can either lock people up or collect their corpses in the morning. Or put floor heating under the streets like they did in Jyväskylä!
      • 2y ago
• yieldcrv 2y ago
  Its not a single thing In San Francisco studies of their populations revealed lots of segments of homeless people The one that stuck out to me the most was the most distressing: people that were homeless within last 12 months of the study, a huge percent of them were just people that left a relationship. That was a housing price problem. I knew so many people that had broken up but still living together, and its crazy that the ones on the street were “the strong ones” that actually left (Since I was not poor and exempt from consequence, I ended that relationship immediately and got a place I actually liked. we had done all the talking I was over it.)
  • CalRobert 2y ago
    I always wondered if housing affordability was the real reason for falling divorce rates.
    • lotsofpulp 2y ago
      If it was, it would be a tiny causal factor compared to the obvious one, lower marriage rates. Have to be married first to get divorced. https://ourworldindata.org/marriages-and-divorces https://ourworldindata.org/marriages-and-divorces
  • lifestyleguru 2y ago
    Yes this is absolutely the case also in Europe. In Berlin or Munich you're not going to rent anything as a single person. In Warsaw or Prague you'll not afford to rent anything on one local income (assuming you even have a job there currently).
    • summeroflove20 2y ago
      You sure about this? Not every single person works in service, hospitality or blue-collar jobs.
      • lifestyleguru 2y ago
        > Not every single person works in service, hospitality or blue-collar jobs. What do mean, that other single professionals will better succeed renting in Berlin or Munich, or afford renting in Warsaw or Prague? My experience is that even less so.
• rayiner 2y ago
  Wow. Finland’s medical detention rate of 214 per 100,000 is on the same order of magnitude as the U.S. incarceration rate of 541 per 100,000. I wonder how many imprisonments in the US could be addressed by mental illness detention.
  • tyingq 2y ago
    There's a chart in this whitepaper where you see how they may have shifted from mental hospitals to jail/prison when US policy around that changed in the 1970's. https://freopp.org/whitepapers/reimagining-the-policy-approach-to-homelessness/ https://freopp.org/whitepapers/reimagining-the-policy-approa... Scroll down to "The Homeless Have Moved from Hospitals to Prisons"
• andrewla 2y ago
  The timeframes are fuzzy, but it looks like the current Finnish mental health regime was enabled by a law passed in 1990. Since that point, given the 5.6M population times the 214/100,000 rate, we get a total of ~12,000 people committed. The graph in the linked article shows a reduction in homelessness from about 17,000 to about 4,000, a reduction of approximately 13,000 people. So I think it's fair to say that Finland's mental health changes have been responsible for the overwhelming majority in the reduction of Finland's homelessness problem. This is consistent with the point that I was trying to make elsewhere in this thread [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42660372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42660372