mental illness and the law

A

Asguard

Kiss my dark side
Valued Senior Member
Why is it so hard for sociaty to admit its own faults? Rather than providing good quality mental health it seems determined to blame people.

Person a) has a heart attack and falls holding a knife and a person gets stabbed, this would be concidered an accident and charges wouldn't even be filed

Person b) has a psycotic break and stabs someone they would not only be charged but the procutor would try everything in there power to claim they are responsible for murder

How is this right? It seems to me that these are related, if you can pretend its murder then its not societies fault that they can't be bothered paying for mental health care

After all how much every year is spent on the criminal "justice" system and how much is spent providing mental health care?
 
Weird if I tried to name this thread "not guilty because of mental disease or defect" it wouldn't let me post it ( and I tried 20 times over various days) but it posted with this title. Oh well
 
I think the one issue is in diagnosis.

Right now, because the diagnostic technology isn't all that, a medical issue is a lot more easily-determined than a psych issue...and someone who's quite guilty-as in they knew exactly whet they were doing-could try and fake it.

But then there's the social perception issue: that is, that mental illnesses are things you can control by force of will, or that they don't really exist. And that may actually be why there's such a lack of services everywhere.

I have heard a lot of nonsense about taking my meds over the years...because apparently, oh I just need to exercise and eat a good diet, or snap out of it by sheer force of will...that I'm just lazy...

(I am a bit lazy, but that's a totally different issue-when I'm depressed I WANT very badly to get up and do something useful but often can't even with caffeine pills and coffee...)

In the US, of course...well, the more mentally ill you are the harder it is to have a good job. In a for-profit system this guarantees the worst off ALSO get the worst treatment.
 
Its more than that though, how many people suffering scizophrenia or bipolar have been judged fit to stand trial inspite of the fact they have had this since childhood
 
Why can't it be done? If we just look at the US how man billions are spent on defense? How much is spent on procuting and locking up the mentally ill in prison? If 1/3 of that was put into mental health care how much better would the system be?
 
Asguard said:
So its better to just lock up the mentally ill? Kill them even?
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You tossed this ball into the court, Asquard, with an accusatory tone in your writing. So how about YOU provide us with the answer? Exactly WHAT kind of treatment can be given to 'fix' these people? Sure, some meds help - but your poor 'victims' all to frequently stop taking them on their own. Some complain that it makes them feel drugged (and I can believe that) while others are just incompetent but think they are cured.

SO what's YOUR solution to the whole problem?
 
Enmos said:
Err.. :p
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Apparently Asguard seems to think that money can buy wisdom. After he apparently didn't like my claim that money can't buy wisdom, I asked him, for confirmation, whether money can buy wisdom.
 
As it stands now though, those most in need of services are the least able to work the system to get them.
Its more than that though, how many people suffering scizophrenia or bipolar have been judged fit to stand trial inspite of the fact they have had this since childhood
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Schizophrenics and bipolars are more likely to be victims than perps.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090414120459.htm
 
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Why should they have to "work the system"?
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SHOULD???

Governmental systems aren't exactly user-friendly. Wherever you have a bureaucracy, it will find a way to suck...
I have yet to observe any strong exceptions to this...
They shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get treatment, but inevitably....

In the states, that's what I get to deal with...and I quit DBT therapy because the check-in procedure was causing me to get out of bed with 6 hours of sleep...and with the medical issues getting worse?
Fatigue was kicking my ass too hard.

The group time and length wasn't the issue-it was that I had to show up an extra hour early to find a parking spot and wait in the cashier line.

So, there are programs set up to help MI people...that the MI people are going to end up potentially not getting helped from because their disorder...makes them too disorganized to advocate for themselves.
 
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You know if there was enough money available I'd want every single person given the type of care that they would need but since that isn't a realistic possibility I guess we can only help as much as possible without bankrupting the entire worlds economy upon those that need medical help no matter what that help is. I would still think that there would be even more problems that would be out there in the world that also need addressing as well, like poverty, education and on and on but again there's not enough money in the entire world to take care of everyones needs. So without money to help everyone we need to reduce spending on things that we see as
unnecessary" and focus as much money on the things which need the most help. Even then there's not enough money to help with all of those dire cases.

So it really all comes down down to money. How much are you willing to put into the government to help everyone? If you think you aren't paying enough why not just put in what you earn so that everyone will see that you mean what you say.
 
cosmictraveler said:
You know if there was enough money available I'd want every single person given the type of care that they would need but since that isn't a realistic possibility I guess we can only help as much as possible without bankrupting the entire worlds economy upon those that need medical help no matter what that help is. I would still think that there would be even more problems that would be out there in the world that also need addressing as well, like poverty, education and on and on but again there's not enough money in the entire world to take care of everyones needs. So without money to help everyone we need to reduce spending on things that we see as
unnecessary" and focus as much money on the things which need the most help. Even then there's not enough money to help with all of those dire cases.

So it really all comes down down to money. How much are you willing to put into the government to help everyone? If you think you aren't paying enough why not just put in what you earn so that everyone will see that you mean what you say.
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Can money buy wisdom?
 
Signal said:
Can money buy wisdom?
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Yes, it can and does buy it. That doesn't mean that you can't still attain wisdom without money but only that money won't prevent you from becoming wise either.
 
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Signal stop trolling my thread, this is about health care not "wisdom"

Basically it comes down to what is the difference between someone who has a heart attack and falls on someone with a knife and kills them, someone has live failure which causes a build up of toxins in the brain causing a psycotic break and leading to them killing someone and lastly a psycotic break caused by scizophrenia leading to them killing something
Answer: nothing, all these deaths are caused by an illness and therefore all of these people area morally innocent and SHOULD be legally innocent
 
Answer: nothing, all these deaths are caused by an illness and therefore all of these people area morally innocent and SHOULD be legally innocent
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Legally they have medical problems and some are mental illnesses which must be addressed by putting them into a mental hospital for the remainder of their lives to help them control themselves so they do not hurt others.
 
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