Do the mentally ill belong in prison?

reply to post by wantsome


She was clearly delusional but i doubt it was because of schizophrenia, schizophrenic people avoid eye contact because they feel that the person they are looking at knows or will know their thoughts.

General tests, which have been developed in recent years, include fixation, where people with schizophrenia have difficulty holding a steady gaze on a single, unmoving object, and smooth pursuit, where people with schizophrenia track slow-moving objects unsteadily, their eyes slowing down and then quickly catching up in a movement called a saccade. For this study, the researchers recorded the eye movements of 88 people with schizophrenia and 88 healthy control subjects, and then developed algorithmic models intended to distinguish the two groups. They wrote that one model achieved "perfect separation" of the 88 schizophrenia cases from the 88 controls. One caveat: those results come from retrospective, or backward-looking, studies in which researchers already knew which patients have been diagnosed with the disease. Diagnostic applications typically must also be tested in prospective studies against patients who haven't yet been diagnosed by traditional means.

Detecting schizophrenia.. eyes have it.

Well what are people supposed to do? For one it is easy to lie and play games while doing a exam to look sane or make one look like they belong in a mental hospital .


We cannot force people to take medication , after numerous please from family what does one do ? We make our choices in life my brother chooses to not take his meds , he chooses to lie while talking to doctors so he can keep playing his little game and keep this feeling of grandeur.

So where else do we throw these people who don't even care to help themselves throw them in hospitals where they waste everyones time lie and blow smoke up everyones arse to get out . No make a choice to break a law and get thrown in jail I have not much sympathy , Refuse to take meds and end up in jail because you have that freedom I don't feel sorry .

I am tired of this road my family has been on for 9 years I am done we all have choices in life some are harder than others. There isn't much family can do to help someone in need when they don't even want help themselves. How many times does one have to say your need your meds you are not right , you are not jesus nor do you get your powers from orion , jesus didn't get mad at people and throw rocks at their cars and damage property or thrash other family memebr homes who were trying to help . nah I am done with it We all make our own choices in life .

Just because someone is mentally ill shouldn't mean a get out of jail free card that so many have tried to do in courts .

The problem is identifying individuals before they lose it and getting them into treatment or identifying those who stop taking their medications.

How do you identify them?

Maybe we need to develop an implantable electronic behavior governor or an organic based version, integrated into DNA so it passes to children, that monitors brain waves and clamps down when you are about to do something not in your or societies best interest.

Maybe go as far as really develop something like John Scalzi's BrainPal that provided communications, body monitoring and weapons control. It was sort of like a Land Warrior System in the brain. Although it was geared for combat, the same kind of idea.

Only problem is who decides what is not in your or societies best interest. Sure wouldn't want a Theocracy based set of rules. Would there be event logging and what rules would govern access? How would it redefine human rights? Would it select you for detention for therapy? Would local rules be uploaded based on country you are in or visiting? Just how invasive and controlling would be acceptable? One set of rules for some and another set for everybody else?

Can mankind define a utility for maximizing individual happiness, fulfillment and morals that would be common to all and replicate it in a set of heuristic rules that can be built in?

Maybe it just notifies authorities when you are losing it and/or medicates you.

When I look back, there were times when I didn't listen to my conscience and did something stupid anyway. I might have been better off if I had a mental buddy saying no and enforcing it. It would have been like having the benefit of a lifetime of wisdom without the painful learning experience.

But, society has to come up with something other than throwing away individuals.

NO NO NO. Mentally ill people should be treated with care in a proper secure, caring environment and if in danger to themselves or others extra care must be provided. In the UK this was thrown into utter confusion when Mrs Thatcher(in the 1980s) closed the secure mental units and forced through what she described as "care in the community". We are still paying for this debacle with mentally ill people being sent to prisons. Another crime to be added to her list of failures.

Well here is the thing, it depends on what country you live in. I live in Canada and work in the prison system. People who are mentally ill that do commit crimes and are indeed fueled by their mental illness have an interesting thing happen to them in Canada. If they are mentally ill when they commit the crime, they will be found NCR or ( Not Criminally Responsible) due to the fact they have a mental illness that caused them to commit the crime. Once this is established they are placed in a Psychiatric Facility/Prison until they are stabilized on medication and ready to be integrated back into the community. So for example if you murder someone and it is due to a mental illness and you are deemed NCR then once you get stabilized on medication at this Facility you start a program getting integrated back into the community where the program facilitators help you find a stable job/source of income as well as they help you get housing etc. I have seen some of these NCR people be in a Psychiatric facility for less than a year, even though there crime, such as rape, murder, etc. would warrant a much longer stay in a regular prison if they were a regular inmate. So they are not tossed aside and forgotten about. But the fact of the matter is they still committed a crime. Now you may not think that murdering someone is such a horrible thing if your mentally ill. So i guess the mentally ill that rape childeren or adults or commit these other crimes aren't so bad either. You might change your mind if they raped your family member or murdered your family member. Just saying, even though you have a mental illness shouldn't give you the right to commit a horrible crime and face a lesser sentence because your sick....

reply to post by warehouse7


This revolving door in Canada is the one psychopaths go through, and they shouldn't be. Over and over to repeat their crimes. It was brought out in a very good book about Nancy Eaton's murder and her slightly younger friend who was basically a sociopathic due to his family and life. I won't call him at that point psychopath because he seemed to seek her out as a stable influence as an inspiration. In other words, she was sort of caretaking and he seemed to need this, perhaps he wouldn't have gone off the dark path. When he killed her, it was really a bizarre case, and they used his behavior as a call for not being first degree murder, that he wasn't responsible. They were both well heeled families basically. So they brought in big gurus in pscyhology and medicine to fit him into a category where, his neo cortex was not engaged, during the act of stabbing her to death.

But in Canada if there was any sexual focus to the crime not only is neo cortex engaged, but its first degree murder. Rape/murders are first degrees murders automatically.

And the coroner evidence showed focus on sexual. ie the cuts on her breasts DID NOT go through the nightshirt. Etc etc.

His bizarre behavior in my opinion was a temper tantrum, and snapping, and feeling powerful for the first time in his life, because he felt disempowered, from all I could read in it. He family excluded him and he was having issues, his core was frazzled and IMO because murdering her like that made him suddenly have this adrenaline and powerful feeling, the potential for him to be very dangerous and repeat this went much higher.

I am not saying that he didn't need help, when I write this. I don't believe in our criminal prison sentences and want healing and help for all people, also protection of public for very dangerous people. Most of whom would be our elites and politicians and the bildenburgs. But a few stray citizens as well.

In this case they won, and he got the Revolving Door of insanity, neo cortex not working despite the coronary evidence.

Well that door if you're a psychopath means you can pass the tests.

Their indefinate sentences are tied into passing psych tests. And sociopaths/psychopaths are not insane, they can pass those tests. They're damaged by not psychotic.

So you go in the facility, pass the tests, and are out in no time.

hurdygurdy
Since the dissolution of state asylums, the mentally ill live in state funded group homes where they are cared for like royalty. Truly. it doesn't get any better than this. The "client" retains all human rights and caregiver is stripped of all human rights. The mentally ill client generates immense profits for the state.

do you have proof of this,

Since the dissolution of state asylums, the mentally ill live in state funded group homes where they are cared for like royalty.

i have two family members, one aunt who lived with my family most of my childhood and one cousin. both were in state mental hospitals and are now in group homes, and in both they received / receive just the bare minimums, every dime of their SSI was / is taken to pay for their care and in both the state hospitals and group homes they are given little more than rags as clothing. hardly anything other than what was needed to keep them alive as far as food goes and constant abuse from others patients / residents and staff. my aunt was even raped in a group home and nothing ever happened to the guy other than being fired.

so you might want to try that crap on someone who doesn't know any better.

now on topic, if the person doesn't know right from wrong, no they shouldn't be put in prison where sane and some border line sane people are housed and pray on others.they should be put in a institution to protect people from their delusional outbreaks, where they can and do harm others.

but as i said above, that system is flawed and needs to be fixed to.



ETA: also in these setting family members that are not rich, can do very little to help them, my mom goes to see her sister every week, and tries to give and get her some cloths, and little things that make life better, like candy, perfume books you know stuff like that, but 7 out of 10 times that gets stolen.
my cousin, she goes to see her when ever she can, she is about a four hour round trip away and it's hard form my mom to go that far to see her that often on her income. my cousin has no other people to come and see her. so she is pretty much lost to the system.