Should psychotic people be locked up?

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   janesixposted 8 years ago

   Should psychotic people be locked up in psych wards? Schizophrenics aren't always psychotic, but should they be locked up during episodes of psychosis? As it stands, people in the US who are psychotic are only locked up if they are an immediate danger to themselves or others.
   
   Should we really let psychotic people run around in the streets? People who can't tell reality from fantasy?
   
   Schizophrenics are 3 to 5 times more likely than others to commit violent crimes.
   
   http://schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/000518.html#
   
   There is also the issue of people needing supervision due to not being able to care for themselves when psychotic.
   
   Should people who are psychotic be held responsible for their actions if they refuse to take their meds and commit a crime? Should taking meds be a requirement to live in regular society?

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      Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      There are certainly people who could qualify for being involuntarily institutionalized for their own and society's safety. The question is who makes the determination and on what basis, where is the objective yardstick to say that certain levels of mental illness are such when the state authorities have to interene? 
      
      Doctors have to determine if the patient is sound enough of mind to consciously aware of the need to remain medicated. Those that are not will require supervision.
      
      The standard for making all the determinations are extremely high, perhaps this is why we have not been successful as a society in curbing this problem.
      
      How do we identify these people early on?

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      rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Beginning in the recession of the 1980's the government shut down many of the mental health facilities. The deinstitutionalization of mentally challenged individuals was turned over local municipalities and their lack of funding put many violent and dangerous patients back on the street to fend for themselves.
      
      As Governor of California Reagan did not believe in supporting mental health facilities and as a result crime and other related issues increased.
      
      "Hospital wards closed as the patients left. By the time Ronald Reagan assumed the governorship in 1967, California had already deinstitutionalized more than half of its state hospital patients." [1]
      
      "Deinstitutionalization played a substantial role in the dramatic increase in violent crime rates in America in the 1970s and 1980s. People who might have been hospitalized in 1950 or 1960 when they first exhibited evidence of serious mental illness today remain at large until they commit a serious felony." [2]
      
      
      [1] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_ … _illness//
      [2] http://lonelyconservative.com/2012/12/i … and-crime/

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   psycheskinnerposted 8 years ago

   Males were more than 9 times more likely than females to commit murder.
   http://149.101.16.41/content/pub/pdf/htius98.pdf
   
   I assume you agree that all men should also be preventatively imprisoned.

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      janesixposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Normal men don't cut off the heads of other people because they think they're aliens, or drown all their children because they think they're Satans' spawn. But psychotic people are capable of it.

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         psycheskinnerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Men do all of those thing for other reasons.  Do you think it matters to the victim what the reason was?
         
         In a straight statistical comparison being male is a higher risk factor than being schizophrenic when it comes to murder.
         
         The only reason to panic about one and not the other is prejudice.

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