Home > Psychiatric imprisonment
Psychiatric imprisonment is involuntary imprisonment of people on the grounds that they are considered psychiatrically insane. In many countries, people behaving in such a way considered insane by a local judge can be put into a mental institution without trial. Critics argue that an open society based on freedom and personal responsibility has no room for treatment of this nature.In some countries, activities such as homosexuality and adultery can result in such imprisonment. In others, such as the former U.S.S.R., and some claim China, North Korea, Canada and the U.S.A., amongst others, such facilities were, or currently are, routinely used to imprison and "treat" dissidents.
It is part of both the criminal justice and hospital systems in most countries and often has an ambiguous relationship to these.
Dr. Thomas Szasz argued that while these practices may have begun as an alternative to punishment, specifically retributive justice, in the U.S.A. they had become by the 1960s a means of defining mere differences as illnesses. This view has become much more prevalent and is today common among even the psychiatric profession, which views itself in a harm reduction role, and feels that psychiatric imprisonment is a legacy system that has no longer any clear moral justification.
1 See also
- Criminal justice
- Involuntary commitment
- PsychiatryPsychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). The term alienist is an old term for a psychiatrist, and the term shrink (from "head shrinker") is a (sometimes offensive) slang term for a psy
- Freedom of associationFreedom of association is a right granted under the constitution or interpretations thereof of several countries, or under certain international conventions pertaining to civil rights. United States Freedom of association is an outgrowth of the United Sta
- Personal conductPersonal conduct is a set of precepts that one individual tries to observe in daily life. For example, not to destroy any living beings, not to engage in any misconduct, not to speak falsely, not to take what is not offered. See also Crime, ethics, moral
- PsikhushkaPsikhushka ("") is a colloquialism for " psychiatric hospital" in Russian language. It has been occasionally used in English language since the times when the dissident movement in the Soviet Union has become known in the West. In the Soviet Union, psychi
2 External links
Mental health lawMental health law is that area of law that deals with mental conditions. This includes areas in both common law and statute law. Common law issues include such concepts as mens rea, insanity defences, sane and insane automatism amongst others. Statute law
SociologySociology is the study of social rules and processes that bind and separate people not only as individuals, but as members of associations, groups, and institutions. A typical textbook definition of sociology calls it the study of the social lives of huma
PsychiatryPsychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). The term alienist is an old term for a psychiatrist, and the term shrink (from "head shrinker") is a (sometimes offensive) slang term for a psy
