Breakdown In Civil Order

[Emily Lake]

This would be great. It'll costs tens of billions of dollars, maybe even a hundred billion dollars, but it'd be great. We also don't have a shot in fuck of enacting such a program.

That’s the beauty of. It won’t happen, so it’s FREE! But what a fantastic idea, eh?

GOP state governments are too busy criminalizing being homeless, rather than trying to tackle the ridiculously complicated issues of homelessness, addiction, and generalized human imperfections.

Imprisoning Them is big business.

The bigger problem is we lack the infrastructure (housing, medical facilities, and staffing) to run such a program.

Free housing, medical facilities, treatments and servants (staff) could almost be paid for with the profit from imprisoning the rest of Them. But it’s gone private.

There are probably at least 100 million Americans that'd scoff at the idea of some people getting perpetual room and board at no cost. Especially when we can just criminalize it and pretend that does something.

MAGA!!
But we have stalwarts like Emily standing in the way, heavily armed with pie in the sky.

If you aren't allowed to leave, you are incarcerated, no matter what you call the facility.

Hey, call it whatever you want. At least it gets rid of Them!!
If the facility is not “secured” and the happy “residents” are allowed - or even remotely able - to leave, They will. QED BY THOUSANDS OF SUCH PROJECTS.

So Waddya gonna do, Emily?
Got any practical ideas?

I'm very tired of your dishonest mischaracterization of my views. Don't you have any integrity at all?

 

[laughing dog]

Incarceration is literally being held in prison. Rehab facilities are not prisons.

If you aren't allowed to leave, you are incarcerated, no matter what you call the facility.

I swear this ends up being linguistic terrorism. It's inane.

I wasn't allowed to leave campus in high school, but it would be ridiculous to say that I was "incarcerated" during high school. There are any number of situations where a person isn't allowed to leave a venue or location for a period of time, and it would be downright absurd to refer to them as "incarceration".

Really - you never left your high school campus when the school day was over?

Yes, incarceration usually means placed in a prison or jail. Incarceration can mean placed under confinement which certainly describes being held for mental observation without one's permission.
So unless you have a better word for "held against one's will for more than one day in a place not of one's choosing", incarceration fits the bill.

 

[bilby]

I wasn't allowed to leave campus in high school, but it would be ridiculous to say that I was "incarcerated" during high school.

That's because you are equivocating on the meaning of "allowed". You were not permitted to leave campus in high school, but unless they locked the doors, you were able to leave.

That you chose not to because you feared the consequences of leaving, or because you accepted that the school had authority over you to permit or prohibit certain behaviours, in no way compares to being physically restrained by locked doors, guards, fences, etc.

If you set up mandatory rehab, where the atendees are able to leave, they will do so. They do not accept that you have authority over them.

So the only way to make it truly mandatory is incarceration.

 

[Politesse]

I wasn't allowed to leave campus in high school, but it would be ridiculous to say that I was "incarcerated" during high school. There are any number of situations where a person isn't allowed to leave a venue or location for a period of time, and it would be downright absurd to refer to them as "incarceration".

If you were sent to a "school" as a punishment for a crime, and there are legal consequences for leaving it, then yes, you're incarcerated. It's the status of the inmates that defines the condition, not the architecture.

 

[Emily Lake]

Incarceration is literally being held in prison. Rehab facilities are not prisons.

If you aren't allowed to leave, you are incarcerated, no matter what you call the facility.

I swear this ends up being linguistic terrorism. It's inane.

I wasn't allowed to leave campus in high school, but it would be ridiculous to say that I was "incarcerated" during high school. There are any number of situations where a person isn't allowed to leave a venue or location for a period of time, and it would be downright absurd to refer to them as "incarceration".

Really - you never left your high school campus when the school day was over?

Yes, incarceration usually means placed in a prison or jail. Incarceration can mean placed under confinement which certainly describes being held for mental observation without one's permission.
So unless you have a better word for "held against one's will for more than one day in a place not of one's choosing", incarceration fits the bill.

I just went through five different dictionaries, and your suggestion is not supported. They all list a singular definition for incarceration, and it involves placement in a prison.

On the other hand... confinement, detention, and restraint could all reasonably be used for your proposed meaning and be perfectly fine. So yeah, there are a LOT of other words that fit the bill... incarceration is not one of them.

 

[Emily Lake]

I wasn't allowed to leave campus in high school, but it would be ridiculous to say that I was "incarcerated" during high school. There are any number of situations where a person isn't allowed to leave a venue or location for a period of time, and it would be downright absurd to refer to them as "incarceration".

IF you're sent to a school as a punishment for a crime, and there are legal consequences for leaving it, then yes, you're incarcerated. It's the status of the inmates that defines the condition, not the architecture.

I see that you are admitting that the use of "incarceration" for placement in a residential mental health facility for those without the ability to care for themselves and maintain existence without supervision is inappropriate then.

 

[Politesse]

I wasn't allowed to leave campus in high school, but it would be ridiculous to say that I was "incarcerated" during high school. There are any number of situations where a person isn't allowed to leave a venue or location for a period of time, and it would be downright absurd to refer to them as "incarceration".

IF you're sent to a school as a punishment for a crime, and there are legal consequences for leaving it, then yes, you're incarcerated. It's the status of the inmates that defines the condition, not the architecture.

I see that you are admitting that the use of "incarceration" for placement in a residential mental health facility for those without the ability to care for themselves and maintain existence without supervision is inappropriate then.

Voluntary placement in a residential mental health facility is not incarceration. Involuntary confinement within one is incarceration.

 

[Elixir]

I'm very tired of your dishonest mischaracterization of my views. Don't you have any integrity at all?

Neither your fatigue nor my integrity is the subject of the thread.
Pay attention.
Do you still believe you could simply open “rehab centers” to some effect?

If so, WHAT WOULD THEY DO?
WHAT WOULD THEY CONSIST OF?

 

[Jarhyn]

Solving the very broad issue of unhoused people is not likely to be a single one size fits all solution unless we want to simply incarcerate people for the crime of having nowhere to go.

Oh FFS, for like the fifteenth time spread across multiple threads:

1) Fund residential mental health facilities for those with severe mental health disorders, particularly those presenting with hallucination and/or delusion. These are people that are unable to care for themselves, unable to hold down a job. They need care in a place that keeps them safe as well as safeguarding the rest of society from them.

2) Involuntary rehab for drug abusers who are unable or unwilling to maintain a job while abstaining from substance abuse and undergoing effective outpatient therapy. I don't lump all drugs together, but the reality is that meth heads and a substantial number of opioid/opiate users cannot stop on their own.

3) Subsidized safe housing for those who do not have severe mental health or substance abuse disorders. I think it might be reasonable to provide separate housing for single adults than for families with children. This should include education and job training and a program to get them employed and into their own housing, not be a permanent dumping ground where nothing else is done except shelter. The objective should be independence.

4) Substantial investment in young childhood education, and an emphasis throughout primary and secondary school on the skills and knowledge needed to be an independent contributor to society.

I have given this same run down multiple times in multiple threads, and I'm sick to fucking death of people with an axe to grind and a complete lack of integrity repeatedly turning around and pretending like none of it exists and then proceeding to pull bullshit out of their asses and pretend like I want to throw everyone in jail or see them die. It's malicious, it's evil, and it's dishonest.

And you believe that the Republican party supports these policies?

Nor do I think much of your solutions, even on their own merits. What exactly is "involuntary rehab"? Do you point a gun at someone and force them to say the twelve steps, or what? How can a rehabilitation process possibly be involuntary? Rehab is less than fully effective when the sufferer is trying their best to cooperate.

It used to be the case (and maybe still is) that you could have someone involuntarily committed for drug detox and/or for serious mental health crisis. 72 hr. hold. My inlaws tried that in desperation with my BIL who had serious substance abuse issues. It did not work.

I understand that there are circumstances where it can work: say someone with serious bipolar disorder or schizophrenia feels better on their meds, to the extent that they believe they don't need the meds anymore, so they go off, lose their equilibrium and need hospitalization in order to stabilize again. This is me, making up the circumstance under which involuntary commitment might be worthwhile. I do know absolutely that it is an issue for some people with some psychiatric illnesses going off their meds, believing they are cured or feeling that the side effects are causing them more problems than the disease.

This is more an issue of consenting to therapy and change in a momentary circumstance, consenting to the change itself, and then breaking the condition which created the consented outcome, though. It's not "involuntary" so much, it's just a treatment that places people in a fragile equilibrium most often.

I'm not sure I accept the excuse of forcing someone to medicate or be some way simply because you think your opinion on the acceptability of consequences is more significant than the person who has to actually do the accepting of those consequences of the treatment.

If there are alternatives to treatment, alternatives that do not involve a clearly unethical situation (such as throwing an insufferable and extreme vandal back out into a place where they can wantonly commit acts of vandalism) being created, such as denying them physical access to vandalize things, the "treatment" ought be deferred even if it means they will never get better and will keep being someone that needs to be kept away from potential victims.

If I was tomorrow omnipotent of this world, I would make a sandbox place where people such as this who wanted to exit to simply could, and where it would not affect those who stayed, and they could just live there, respawning as they may, unhurt by any consequence as they live their lives.

But I can't, so I will work towards the next best thing: a world where we can at least move towards something similar.

Solving the very broad issue of unhoused people is not likely to be a single one size fits all solution unless we want to simply incarcerate people for the crime of having nowhere to go.

Oh FFS, for like the fifteenth time spread across multiple threads:

1) Fund residential mental health facilities for those with severe mental health disorders, particularly those presenting with hallucination and/or delusion. These are people that are unable to care for themselves, unable to hold down a job. They need care in a place that keeps them safe as well as safeguarding the rest of society from them.

2) Involuntary rehab for drug abusers who are unable or unwilling to maintain a job while abstaining from substance abuse and undergoing effective outpatient therapy. I don't lump all drugs together, but the reality is that meth heads and a substantial number of opioid/opiate users cannot stop on their own.

And neither of these work.

Involuntary mental health treatment is useless. Involuntary rehab is useless.

I do agree with trying to help those that are homeless for economic reasons, but those aren't the ones causing the problems.

I didn't suggest just mental health treatment. Some degree of treatment is appropriate, certainly. But I specifically said residential facilities - literally places that house the severely mentally disordered so that both they and everyone else is safe. That doesn't assume some kind of magical cure. But it does keep those poor individuals from becoming victims... and it also keeps everyone else safe from the occasional psychotic break.

This would be great. It'll costs tens of billions of dollars, maybe even a hundred billion dollars, but it'd be great. We also don't have a shot in fuck of enacting such a program. GOP state governments are too busy criminalizing being homeless, rather than trying to tackle the ridiculously complicated issues of homelessness, addiction, and generalized human imperfections. The bigger problem is we lack the infrastructure (housing, medical facilities, and staffing) to run such a program. There are probably at least 100 million Americans that'd scoff at the idea of some people getting perpetual room and board at no cost. Especially when we can just criminalize it and pretend that does something.

Americans are too busy under-cutting each other to care about people in a plight they don't think they'll ever see themselves in. 40 years of Reaganomics has fucked our nation's soul.

So while I applaud your idea, I'm curious if you have any idea that has a shot in heck of actually occurring.

Hey now, at least it's an idea! It's more than we had before now from that camp, and yeah, I would say shut up and take my tax money for that, EXCEPT for the fact that this includes people who are perfectly happy living as they do and are capable of doing so without otherwise breaking laws.

It runs roughshod over the rights people have to live their lives free of such imposition.

I doubt, after all, that Emily would approve of a program to take "every person who acts entitled to take the freedom of others for the improvement of their own aesthetic pleasure" to a facility to free us all of their noxious effects in public life, despite this being a much more fitting target than "homeless people" for such treatment, and if it is not an ethical way to resolve MY aesthetic goals of streets free of horrible and unsavory persons, it is no more an ethical way to resolve her own!

 

[ZiprHead]

Incarceration is literally being held in prison. Rehab facilities are not prisons.

If you aren't allowed to leave, you are incarcerated, no matter what you call the facility.

I swear this ends up being linguistic terrorism. It's inane.

I wasn't allowed to leave campus in high school, but it would be ridiculous to say that I was "incarcerated" during high school. There are any number of situations where a person isn't allowed to leave a venue or location for a period of time, and it would be downright absurd to refer to them as "incarceration".

You could have left anytime with your parent's permission. After eighteen you could leave anytime and the school could not stop you. So, very bad analogy.

 

[Toni]

Solving the very broad issue of unhoused people is not likely to be a single one size fits all solution unless we want to simply incarcerate people for the crime of having nowhere to go.

Oh FFS, for like the fifteenth time spread across multiple threads:

1) Fund residential mental health facilities for those with severe mental health disorders, particularly those presenting with hallucination and/or delusion. These are people that are unable to care for themselves, unable to hold down a job. They need care in a place that keeps them safe as well as safeguarding the rest of society from them.

2) Involuntary rehab for drug abusers who are unable or unwilling to maintain a job while abstaining from substance abuse and undergoing effective outpatient therapy. I don't lump all drugs together, but the reality is that meth heads and a substantial number of opioid/opiate users cannot stop on their own.

3) Subsidized safe housing for those who do not have severe mental health or substance abuse disorders. I think it might be reasonable to provide separate housing for single adults than for families with children. This should include education and job training and a program to get them employed and into their own housing, not be a permanent dumping ground where nothing else is done except shelter. The objective should be independence.

4) Substantial investment in young childhood education, and an emphasis throughout primary and secondary school on the skills and knowledge needed to be an independent contributor to society.

I have given this same run down multiple times in multiple threads, and I'm sick to fucking death of people with an axe to grind and a complete lack of integrity repeatedly turning around and pretending like none of it exists and then proceeding to pull bullshit out of their asses and pretend like I want to throw everyone in jail or see them die. It's malicious, it's evil, and it's dishonest.

And you believe that the Republican party supports these policies?

Nor do I think much of your solutions, even on their own merits. What exactly is "involuntary rehab"? Do you point a gun at someone and force them to say the twelve steps, or what? How can a rehabilitation process possibly be involuntary? Rehab is less than fully effective when the sufferer is trying their best to cooperate.

It used to be the case (and maybe still is) that you could have someone involuntarily committed for drug detox and/or for serious mental health crisis. 72 hr. hold. My inlaws tried that in desperation with my BIL who had serious substance abuse issues. It did not work.

I understand that there are circumstances where it can work: say someone with serious bipolar disorder or schizophrenia feels better on their meds, to the extent that they believe they don't need the meds anymore, so they go off, lose their equilibrium and need hospitalization in order to stabilize again. This is me, making up the circumstance under which involuntary commitment might be worthwhile. I do know absolutely that it is an issue for some people with some psychiatric illnesses going off their meds, believing they are cured or feeling that the side effects are causing them more problems than the disease.

This is more an issue of consenting to therapy and change in a momentary circumstance, consenting to the change itself, and then breaking the condition which created the consented outcome, though. It's not "involuntary" so much, it's just a treatment that places people in a fragile equilibrium most often.

I'm not sure I accept the excuse of forcing someone to medicate or be some way simply because you think your opinion on the acceptability of consequences is more significant than the person who has to actually do the accepting of those consequences of the treatment.

If there are alternatives to treatment, alternatives that do not involve a clearly unethical situation (such as throwing an insufferable and extreme vandal back out into a place where they can wantonly commit acts of vandalism) being created, such as denying them physical access to vandalize things, the "treatment" ought be deferred even if it means they will never get better and will keep being someone that needs to be kept away from potential victims.

If I was tomorrow omnipotent of this world, I would make a sandbox place where people such as this who wanted to exit to simply could, and where it would not affect those who stayed, and they could just live there, respawning as they may, unhurt by any consequence as they live their lives.

But I can't, so I will work towards the next best thing: a world where we can at least move towards something similar.

Solving the very broad issue of unhoused people is not likely to be a single one size fits all solution unless we want to simply incarcerate people for the crime of having nowhere to go.

Oh FFS, for like the fifteenth time spread across multiple threads:

1) Fund residential mental health facilities for those with severe mental health disorders, particularly those presenting with hallucination and/or delusion. These are people that are unable to care for themselves, unable to hold down a job. They need care in a place that keeps them safe as well as safeguarding the rest of society from them.

2) Involuntary rehab for drug abusers who are unable or unwilling to maintain a job while abstaining from substance abuse and undergoing effective outpatient therapy. I don't lump all drugs together, but the reality is that meth heads and a substantial number of opioid/opiate users cannot stop on their own.

And neither of these work.

Involuntary mental health treatment is useless. Involuntary rehab is useless.

I do agree with trying to help those that are homeless for economic reasons, but those aren't the ones causing the problems.

I didn't suggest just mental health treatment. Some degree of treatment is appropriate, certainly. But I specifically said residential facilities - literally places that house the severely mentally disordered so that both they and everyone else is safe. That doesn't assume some kind of magical cure. But it does keep those poor individuals from becoming victims... and it also keeps everyone else safe from the occasional psychotic break.

This would be great. It'll costs tens of billions of dollars, maybe even a hundred billion dollars, but it'd be great. We also don't have a shot in fuck of enacting such a program. GOP state governments are too busy criminalizing being homeless, rather than trying to tackle the ridiculously complicated issues of homelessness, addiction, and generalized human imperfections. The bigger problem is we lack the infrastructure (housing, medical facilities, and staffing) to run such a program. There are probably at least 100 million Americans that'd scoff at the idea of some people getting perpetual room and board at no cost. Especially when we can just criminalize it and pretend that does something.

Americans are too busy under-cutting each other to care about people in a plight they don't think they'll ever see themselves in. 40 years of Reaganomics has fucked our nation's soul.

So while I applaud your idea, I'm curious if you have any idea that has a shot in heck of actually occurring.

Hey now, at least it's an idea! It's more than we had before now from that camp, and yeah, I would say shut up and take my tax money for that, EXCEPT for the fact that this includes people who are perfectly happy living as they do and are capable of doing so without otherwise breaking laws.

It runs roughshod over the rights people have to live their lives free of such imposition.

I doubt, after all, that Emily would approve of a program to take "every person who acts entitled to take the freedom of others for the improvement of their own aesthetic pleasure" to a facility to free us all of their noxious effects in public life, despite this being a much more fitting target than "homeless people" for such treatment, and if it is not an ethical way to resolve MY aesthetic goals of streets free of horrible and unsavory persons, it is no more an ethical way to resolve her own!

I was thinking specifically of the time my in laws had my BIL placed on a 72 hour hold because of his extreme substance abuse/acting out. They honestly were trying to save his life. When your kid’s druggy friends come to you, alarmed about your son’s intake of illegal substances, you tend to take special notice. Given some of his behaviors at the time, they were right to be concerned for their son’s life. To be honest, although this was not their concern, there were legitimate concerns for their own safety even though he did not live there, and also legitimate concerns for the safety of the general public as he did drive under the influence.

Of course this involuntary commitment was not effective, By some miracle he is still alive and probably not abusing recreational drugs any longer. Probably not true re: prescription pain meds, which he legitimately needs. It’s been more than a year since the last time he nearly died from alcohol abuse. As far as we know.

 

[Elixir]

You could have left anytime with your parent's permission.

Or without. I was 17 when I gave notice and left, ne’er to return.

 

[laughing dog]

Incarceration is literally being held in prison. Rehab facilities are not prisons.

If you aren't allowed to leave, you are incarcerated, no matter what you call the facility.

I swear this ends up being linguistic terrorism. It's inane.

I wasn't allowed to leave campus in high school, but it would be ridiculous to say that I was "incarcerated" during high school. There are any number of situations where a person isn't allowed to leave a venue or location for a period of time, and it would be downright absurd to refer to them as "incarceration".

Really - you never left your high school campus when the school day was over?

Yes, incarceration usually means placed in a prison or jail. Incarceration can mean placed under confinement which certainly describes being held for mental observation without one's permission.
So unless you have a better word for "held against one's will for more than one day in a place not of one's choosing", incarceration fits the bill.

I just went through five different dictionaries, and your suggestion is not supported. They all list a singular definition for incarceration, and it involves placement in a prison…..

When I look it up in my traditional hardbound OED it gives “imprison, confine, shut in”.

 

[Elixir]

“I just went through five different dictionaries, and your suggestion is not supported. They all list a singular definition for incarceration, and it involves placement in a prison…..“

So what?
You’re going to pick Them up, put Them somewhere They don’t want to be, and not let Them leave, right?

Call it rehab if you like, but I can’t find any definition of rehab (short for rehabilitation iirc) that looks like that.

So for the umpteenth time
WHAT DO THESE REHAB PLACES CONSIST OF, WHAT DO THEY DO AND HOW THEY DO IT?
Would you be okay with living next door to one?

ETA “I wasn't allowed to leave campus in high school,”

Neither was I, yet leaving campus without permission was the #1 sport. You probably should have tried it.

 

[Toni]

“I just went through five different dictionaries, and your suggestion is not supported. They all list a singular definition for incarceration, and it involves placement in a prison…..“

So what?
You’re going to pick Them up, put Them somewhere They don’t want to be, and not let Them leave, right?

Call it rehab if you like, but I can’t find any definition of rehab (short for rehabilitation iirc) that looks like that.

So for the umpteenth time
WHAT DO THESE REHAB PLACES CONSIST OF, WHAT DO THEY DO AND HOW THEY DO IT?
Would you be okay with living next door to one?

ETA “I wasn't allowed to leave campus in high school,”

Neither was I, yet leaving campus without permission was the #1 sport. You probably should have tried it.

At least some rehab facilities are hospitals or have medical facilities on site, with trained personnel to help addicts kick their addiction. None of it works unless the addict wants to get free of their addiction and for some, that means finding some other way to deal with an array of serious mental illnesses.

Down the street from me, a couple of blocks away have been a couple of different halfway houses. I would be concerned if I knew that violent criminals lived there, yes. Reality is that who knows all of their neighbors well enough to know for certain that none of them are addicts or violent. Heck, in my town, being a violent addict who shoots guns into other people's back yards---or at puppies or at squirrels in trees outside of kids' bedrooms does not warrant a visit from the police. I know because I called. Once they ascertained that the person with the gun was a middle aged adult, the police lost all interest in paying him a visit.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Never mind that for the VAST majority of primate existence, eating what you found was easy enough and few people ever actually participated in acquiring that food.

Seriously, bro, if you want to go back to a prehistoric existence, livingi n a cave and just hoping you don't get dysentery or starve to death, go find a mountainside to live on. There are plenty of spaces in the US that are untamed and you can live out your noble savage fantasy to your heart's content.

But don't think that you should be entitled to live your lotus-eater life while expecting other people to put in the hard work to keep you alive.

Ah, liberals. All heart, they are.

Jesus fuck, that was demented.

Nowhere on earth is there a place where people in America can just conveniently go find a mountainside to live on that is none of (cult), (protected park land), or (owned by someone else).

Actually, it is possible depending on your definition of "live". Pitch a tent at night, pack it up and move on by day.

The power to do that without eventually being stopped is an extreme luxury these days. The only place it is really possible, especially in a community environment, is in a homeless encampment, and even that is illegal in many/most places.

Yeah, it's not possible in a community environment.

Realistically, it's the sort of thing where so long as you stay under the radar little is likely to be done about it. People have a problem with homeless encampments because they're very much not staying under the radar.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Not to mention that forcing someone into some form of closed environment because they do not conform to your social expectations, especially in a climate where those social expectations veer away from acknowledgement of the human condition itself, seems particularly bent as a worldview.

The fundamental problem here is not merely not conforming, but being disruptive. We have two sides:

1) They want the problem gone, period.
1a) They recognize it means locking people up, but if they won't behave in society so be it.
1b) They have handwave solutions that pretend issues can be solved. Standard examples are forcing mental health treatment or forcing rehab.

2) They want society to bear the burden, seeing limiting people at the greater evil.

What I think we need is a better distinction between the big problems and the little problems. Lock up the ones whose untreated mental issues cause violence.

 

[Elixir]

None of it works unless the addict wants to get free of their addiction and for some, that means finding some other way to deal with an array of serious mental illnesses.

Thank you for explaining why thousands will end up in jail.

I just looked up the number of homeless people who are living on the streets of San Francisco. It’s purportedly around 3000, out of a population of around 808,000.
San Francisco’s epic feces problem is such legend, I was expecting to find a five figure number of Them. If just giving people stuff would help, I’m certain that the other 800,000 people could provide handsomely. After all it’s a fairly wealthy neighborhood, generally.
But this is not a “homeless” problem, it’s a human problem.
Ever since parapets and watchtowers went out of style, The Otherwise Homeless have been a threat to destroy, steal, or crap on other people’s property and common (public) iproperty. Rome had some creative deterrents, as did Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung and numerous other rulers. But none of those luminaries of human suffering has ever been able to eliminate THEM.
We have the means in modern times, but lack the will.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It used to be the case (and maybe still is) that you could have someone involuntarily committed for drug detox and/or for serious mental health crisis. 72 hr. hold. My inlaws tried that in desperation with my BIL who had serious substance abuse issues. It did not work.

My understanding is that it takes a threat of suicide to trigger such a lockup, but the only crazy I have any connection to is not in the US legal system and the problem isn't one of self-harm, anyway.

I understand that there are circumstances where it can work: say someone with serious bipolar disorder or schizophrenia feels better on their meds, to the extent that they believe they don't need the meds anymore, so they go off, lose their equilibrium and need hospitalization in order to stabilize again. This is me, making up the circumstance under which involuntary commitment might be worthwhile. I do know absolutely that it is an issue for some people with some psychiatric illnesses going off their meds, believing they are cured or feeling that the side effects are causing them more problems than the disease.

It's seeing the side effects as worse than the disease. Usually a false perception (their memories of the time off the meds are often inaccurate) and often the burden falls on those around. If you don't pose a danger to others I think it should be your choice, but I have very little tolerance for harm inflicted in such situations. Off your meds should be a major aggravating factor in any criminal case.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Involuntary rehab sure sounds like incarceration to me.

Incarceration is literally being held in prison. Rehab facilities are not prisons.

Do you have any suggestions of your own, are you down with the "let them eat cake it's all fine" approach?

A locked facility is basically a prison.