Is it constitutional to arrest mentally ill people for being mentally ill?
That's a complex question.
I don't think homeless advocacy groups have any interest in obstructing homeless people's access to municipally-administered mental health and substance-abuse programs? Sure, they don't want people harassed, but I see no evidence they're actively trying to prevent people from getting treatment.
It's possible to involuntarily commit someone to a mental hospital. That's not an arrest, it's a civil commitment of a medical nature without any criminal implications.
Sure, they don't want people harassed, but I see no evidence they're actively trying to prevent people from getting treatment.
Homeless advocacy groups recently blocked the construction of a homeless shelter in Lancaster because they didn't like the location. They've blocked multiple attempts by the city to force violently mentally ill homeless individuals from being treated, even though such individuals are a harm to themselves and to others...especially others. More than dozen homeless individuals have been murdered this year by other homeless persons who were prevented from receiving medical treatment by homeless advocacy groups.
The problem is that the idiot advocates base their views of "harassment" on academic ivory-tower views of personhood, and don't understand what it means to be mentally ill and homeless. It means to be shitting yourself every day, to be eating food off the streets, to spend your days and nights fighting off rats and cockroaches, and to avoiding drug dealers and persons more ill than yourself, to be lost in haze or to be seeing people and creatures that don't exist.
Nobody wants to be mentally ill, and once treated, the individual always prefers sanity. The problem with most mental illnesses that lead to homelessness, especially the schizophrenic family of disorders, is that the disorder itself makes the individual paranoid of treatment, and the homeless advocates focus all of their attention on that refusal instead of actually making the person better.
A homeless person that has their mental illness under control can transition to permanent housing and become a functioning member of society again. But in order to do that, you need to let them be treated, even if they don't want the treatment.
If we had a system where people could be placed on a medical hold, and taken somewhere to receive humane treatment with a safe environment to get better, my god, I wouldn't have any problem with that at all. But, I have spent my fair share of time bringing patients into county mental health facilities, and oh man they can be kind of terrifying places. The system, as it exists now, is not even remotely capable of what you describe.
It would be great to see a system for humane, limited-term institutionalization with long-term follow-up like you're talking about. If there's a coherent policy platform somewhere that outlines what this would look like and how we get from A to B, I would love to see it.
On the other hand, the state mental hospitals are very good at what they do. I had multiple clients treated at Patton (one of the state mental hospitals for criminal offenders) and they are all still maintaining self-medication years after treatment.
Almost all of the state mental hospitals are for criminal patients. AFAIK only one is open to non-offender patients and they only take referrals.
> Almost all of the state mental hospitals are for criminal patients.
Is this a specific legal thing, like criminally insane?
> AFAIK only one is open to non-offender patients and they only take referrals.
I wasn't aware there was the possibility of referrals. We'll look into this the next time it comes around...
My severely autistic adult nephew finally got placed in a county-affiliated group home, but getting him there and keeping him in the program is a full-time job split between various family members. He's been on a few 5150s, and anywhere he winds up half the time they have him drugged out of his mind.
Our country's infrastructure for handling these problems is borderline criminal.
I sincerely hope that you guys are able to get your brother in law some help.
Moving from here to there is just, well, daunting to say the least.
The way I see it, it should work like both the rights and responsibilities currently work for children. Children are not tried for crimes as adults (most of the time), because we understand their lack of capability, but that also means they cannot drive, drink, vote, sign certain contracts without an adult, etc., and small children can be coerced by their parents to an even large degree.
Either you are an adult and can participate in society, but then you have to take responsibility for your actions, including going to jail, mental illness or not.
Or, mental illness excuses you from responsibility due to limited capability, but then your rights can also be restricted accordingly.
The choice for someone committing a crime and claiming mental illness should be jail, or involuntary treatment.
But the bigger problem is the ACLU and especially homeless advocacy groups, who have decided that being drunk, high, and shitting on the sidewalk are constitutional rights. It is literally impossible to get a homeless person the treatment they need for their mental illness or drug dependency because these groups have blocked all efforts by the city and county to administer such programs.