Psychology as a science is remarkable in its inability to make accurate predictions. I'd ask those professionals be criminally liable if their assessment proves inaccurate.
Now, this is a nearly non existent problem isn't it? For major crimes, being locked up in psychiatric care is a longer, or indefinite sentence, than would be served in prison (this varies between countries of course).
This guy was getting locked up no matter what. The only question was, was he getting locked up in a prison or in a psych ward? So do we trust psychiatry enough to say "lock him up here rather than there"? Sure.
Do we trust them enough to say "It's safe to release him now"? That's a harder question.
In the involuntary commitment case, is it reasonable to hold a person longer than what the equivalent prison sentence would be, even if the person is still considered mentally ill after the equivalent time?
In England a prisoner who becomes mentally ill and is sent to hospital will be kept in hospital until they are well. The legal powers to send them to hospital and keep them there are listed in the Mental Health Act. People are detained under section of the MHA - commonly known as sectioned.
When a prisoner detained under section is in hospital and their prison sentence ends their section is converted to a different one, which allows treatment to continue.
That's not true. Doctors didn't make a decision to lock up the individual.
It's much easier to say that someone who executed other people is crazy than it is to say that person's craziness and tendencies toward evil have been cured.
Yes it's hard to say someone is sane, and also rare. Which is why this is such a small problem - people aren't often declared sane and released if they committed serious crimes.
> It's much easier to say that someone who executed other people is crazy than it is to say that person's craziness and tendencies toward evil have been cured.
No. It's literally the exact same evaluation. The reason it feels easier is because the stakes seem lower. Lock someone in prison or hospital? Big deal? When releasing, it's a risk assessment too. But the evaluation is exactly the same.
> No. It's literally the exact same evaluation. The reason it feels easier is because the stakes seem lower. Lock someone in prison or hospital? Big deal? When releasing, it's a risk assessment too. But the evaluation is exactly the same.
You said I was wrong, and then wrote text that supported my comment.
It doesn't matter if the evaluation is the same. The state of sanity differs from the state of insanity, yet not showing insanity is different from showing sanity. There are true-positives, true-negatives, false-positives, and false-negatives.
> showing insanity is different from showing sanity. There are true-positives, true-negatives, false-positives, and false-negatives.
Right. And a false positive might send someone to this facility instead of prison while a true negative might let someone out while dangerous.
I'd ask those professionals be criminally liable if their assessment proves inaccurate.
Similarly a DA only attempts to prove to a jury that a defendant is guilty and it us their job to argue as much.
If an expert witness claims something that is untrue he would be subject to perjury.
If we want to have concept like people being cured of medical conditions, then we must also accept that doctors will make imperfect distinction between healthy and sick.
The question society must make is how far we can accept that mistakes happen, and what safe guards we impose to handle the situations when someone fails.
Obviously if someone is found lying they should be held responsible - but the released person reoffending does not make the evaluation willfully dishonest.
If that became the case, no one would be released, ever.
For example, soldiers kill people, because it's "war" or they have "orders" or it's "the just way to deal with things".
If they'd kill the same person on the streets as a civilian, everyone would be disgusted and angry. Yet for it's former reason people feel the need to give medals and applaud.
You should think about this really hard for a second.
Our minds are not entirely our own, and simple cognitive pushes here and there can change our entire perspective just like that, while OBJECTIVELY it's still a dead human in this particular example.
With that said, one should not seek black and white answers in this concept. Mentall illnesses and for that matter the law system are dynamic and constantly in motion.
It's much harder to tell whether a person will offend again, and there are severe consequences if that person does offend again, so professionals are risk averse.
Right. But this often takes place several months or years after the crime was committed. So might still be difficult.
> It's much harder to tell whether a person will offend again, and there are severe consequences if that person does offend again
Yes, someone might get hurt. So yes, risk aversion involved. But also: there are severe consequences for the opposite too. Remember this is a person that is not guilty (responsible) for a crime, that is kept locked up.
There is science, and there is Science.
Now, this is obviously a hard and delicate problem when it comes to the releasing part of the equation.
But the argument that they are either incapable or untrustworthy to make the judgment doesn't fly - why were they capable and trustworthy when locking someone up then?
1) The person would have been locked up whether found sane or insane. The only different was location.
2) You are admitting facts not in evidence, when you assume that the doctors were capable and trustworthy when determining the insanity. There is science and there is Science.
Right. Which is why that decision is done with lower stakes. But
> You are admitting facts not in evidence, when you assume that the doctors were capable and trustworthy when determining the insanity.
All I'm saying is that regardless of how accurate and trustworthy they are, if we trust them do do A we better trust them when doing B, even if the stakes and risk of mistakes are higher.
I can't see any other solution, do you? The only theoretically possible solution would be to lock people up for life if found insane - but I don't think that's a viable approach.
Well, if he is considered sane by trustworthy professionals, then why not?
I can't see how it's different to live next to someone who is cured after 10 years of treatment, as opposed to say someone who was in prison for 10 years for the same crime (Where I live this would likely be considered more severe than the normal 12 years out after 9 though). Probably 18 or life, where "life" is often at least 18.
I'd prefer not to live next to that person, but there isn't really much I can do about living next to an ex convict, or in this case an ex- mental patient?