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.
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).