Some institutionalized patients still behaved unacceptably. It was just kept out of your sight.
Some institutionalized patients stabilized not because they had prescriptions or therapy appointments, but because they were coerced to actually take the meds and show up at the therapy appointments. Subject to lights-out at a reasonable hour. Denied access to alcohol and recreational drugs. Etc.
Either way, our current understanding is that these were gross violations of medical ethics and human rights. We locked people up who had not been convicted of any crime. We confined people indefinitely who had only been convicted of nuisance crimes. We took people who had the capacity to understand the medical care they were being offered, and we didn't care what they had to say about it.
It doesn't matter how expedient any of this was for society or for the patients, it was wrong. We are as likely to walk this back as we are to re-normalize sexual harassment or slavery or something.
>It doesn't matter how expedient any of this was for society or for the patients, it was wrong
It was wrong to provide a place, staffed by clinical professionals, providing professional healthcare, and regulated by government agencies? Uh huh.
Well, I'm glad you feel all that was 'wrong', because apparently what replaced it, mentally ill people living in squalor, exposed to the elements and diseases, in makeshift shanty-towns ... that's been a real improvement. A homeless individual suffering from schizophrenia and unable to make rational decisions, I'm sure he appreciates you fighting for his right to live in squalor.
Unbelievable.
> It was just kept out of your sight.
That's what we have now. Homeless, and homeless encampments are so normal in progressives cities, it's like background noise. You'll literally step-over a sleeping homeless on your way to work without a second thought (and I can guarantee you do that every day, if you live in one of those cities). Sorry ... I forgot, we're protecting their rights to not receive institutional care.
One of my family members was murdered because we didn't institutionalize somebody. The mother of the murderer had wanted him institutionalized, but oh no that would violate his rights. He was a fully expected hazard. So now an innocent person is dead.
Some institutionalized patients stabilized not because they had prescriptions or therapy appointments, but because they were coerced to actually take the meds and show up at the therapy appointments. Subject to lights-out at a reasonable hour. Denied access to alcohol and recreational drugs. Etc.
Either way, our current understanding is that these were gross violations of medical ethics and human rights. We locked people up who had not been convicted of any crime. We confined people indefinitely who had only been convicted of nuisance crimes. We took people who had the capacity to understand the medical care they were being offered, and we didn't care what they had to say about it.
It doesn't matter how expedient any of this was for society or for the patients, it was wrong. We are as likely to walk this back as we are to re-normalize sexual harassment or slavery or something.