And also suspend pretty basic rights, and deal with all the outcomes from people being institutionalized for not so well meaning reasons?

Someone who is unwell who has committed multiple lesser acts of violence should probably be locked up for at least a little while sufficient for us to figure out if he is going to do it again.

Committing acts of violence wasn't in GP post. That's a detail you've added.

If someone has committed acts of violence you lock them up for those acts.

This entire thread split off the post that read in part.

>There's a guy down at an I-5 onramp in downtown who keeps trying to throw small women off the overpass.

This is what we are discussing.

What basic right allows you to try and murder someone?

Police arrive at your home and they detain you, and take you to hospital. They claim that you might murder someone.

How do you get out of hospital?

I'd admit my brother if he were doing this. Say what you will about the ghoulish hollywood history of asylums, but surviving on the streets is no environment to improve your mental health.

Do you think there is no objective standard by which we can judge consistent, completely insane, detached behavior?

I know for a fact that there's no way we can tell who out of that group of "completely insane" is likely to be violent.

What you're asking for is detention of people with a disability because they have a disability. That's not allowed under the UN CRPD.

I truly don't understand the world you inhabit. A prior history of repeated attempts to commit harm are a pretty good predictor of future actions absent a compelling narrative suggesting otherwise.

Ex. Patient A was doing foo harmful behavior until we changed their medication and the devil stopped appearing in their dreams to give them orders.

Patient B had a history of trying to bite nurses noses off but has been well behaved for 2 years now and participating in therapy.

Every first world nation has standards and procedures for detaining people who are unwell and a danger to themselves and others. It usually involves "expert" opinion and bad behavior to get into such a situation and "expert" opinion to get out. There is an entire history of bad behavior and bad science involved here but the substitute for bad science is better science not let people get away with infinite malfeasance because they are nuts.

People are for example sometimes ordered to facilities where they may receive treatment in place of detention in prison or be taken into custody in the process of some bad behavior and be subjected to an evaluation based on their behavior.

What do you suggest we do with the guy trying to throw women into traffic when he is inevitably declared crazy? Dismiss the charges and let him go? Would you rather

-- He get the treatment he so clearly needs.

-- Someone get murdered by him.

-- The citizenry take matters into their own hands and rid themselves of him.

Option A is surely infinity preferable.

Again, you've added "prior history of violence". In that case we're not incarcerating people because they are disabled, we're incarcerating them for committing crime.

GP post calls for indefinite detention merely for being ill.

> I think the tough call needs to be made that when someone is obviously mentally ill, homeless and without proper sane supervision, the State should institutionalize them indefinitely.

There's nothing in this sentence about violent behaviour.

> Every first world nation has standards and procedures for detaining people who are unwell and a danger to themselves and others. It usually involves "expert" opinion and bad behavior to get into such a situation and "expert" opinion to get out.

You may want to read article 14 of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UN CRPD). https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-...

> 1. States Parties shall ensure that persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others:

> a) Enjoy the right to liberty and security of person;

> b) Are not deprived of their liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily, and that any deprivation of liberty is in conformity with the law, and that the existence of a disability shall in no case justify a deprivation of liberty.

Especially read this bit: "and that the existence of a disability shall in no case justify a deprivation of liberty."

Now read what the committee for CRPD say about detaining mentally ill people because they are mentally ill: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CRPD/GC/GuidelinesA...

> III. The absolute prohibition of detention on the basis of impairment

> 6. There are still practices in which States parties allow for the deprivation of liberty on the grounds of actual or perceived impairment.1 In this regard the Committee has established that article 14 does not permit any exceptions whereby persons may be detained on the grounds of their actual or perceived impairment. However, legislation of several States parties, including mental health laws, still provide instances in which persons may be detained on the grounds of their actual or perceived impairment, provided there are other reasons for their detention, including that they are deemed dangerous to themselves or others. This practice is incompatible with article 14; it is discriminatory in nature and amounts to arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

> There is an entire history of bad behavior and bad science involved here but the substitute for bad science is better science not let people get away with infinite malfeasance because they are nuts.

The long history is that people wrongly think mental illness causes violence (it doesn't) or that we can predict violence because of mental illness (we can't). If someone is committing acts of violence you have a criminal justice system that should deal with them, and that may involve forensic hospitals. But they're there because of the violence, not because of the mental illness.

But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that unethical_ban is wrong to call for indeterminate detention of people just because those people are mentally ill.

I don't think the US ever ratified the CRPD and we are talking about Seattle.

Are you seriously arguing that a person of average intelligence can figure out which people wandering around obviously fucked up in the head might hurt them but science can't I don't find this claim credible.