Mental Health Court
There have been several articles this week in the New York press about "mental health courts". I've been thinking about them a great deal. On the one hand we have to consider the terrible plight of mentally ill people suffering in prison. On the other we have the singling out of allegedly mentally ill people, the criminalization of mental status, and forced mental health treatment. It's hard to know which is the worse of the two evils.
It turns out that there are other specialized courts as well. New York has domestic violence court and homelessness court while Alaska has a court just for veteran's issues. There is even a name for it - "therapeutic jurisprudence". Many people feel that this is a welcome development - the personalization of justice. A woman arrested for prostitution, let's say, might be able to go to drug court, get sentenced to treatment, get job training, and leave the system with no criminal record. This could be seen as a very compassionate response from a usually cold system.
Critics point out that this actually leaves judges, usually white, well educated, and well-off, in intimate control of the lives of poor people. In the case of mental health courts, judges can certainly find themselves out of their depth. For example, a judge may order that a patient take medication, undergo shock treatments, or change their prescription. This seems unwise to me. Whenever the law and medicine overlap, I get nervous.
The place where the law and medicine invariably overlap is at the point of involuntary commitment. Back in 1954 when my grandmother was committed, my grandfather was at first a willing party. He signed a "complaint" against her and that was enough to have her held in the psychiatric hospital. Later, when he wanted to get her out, the psychiatrists would not release her. The fact that he wished to withdraw his complaint meant nothing. Once she was in the jaws of the beast, there was no getting out.
I'm sure that most judges do their best to make proper decisions, but these courts need an impartial observer to ensure that they are dispensing compassionate justice and not becoming a social or moral kangaroo court.
It turns out that there are other specialized courts as well. New York has domestic violence court and homelessness court while Alaska has a court just for veteran's issues. There is even a name for it - "therapeutic jurisprudence". Many people feel that this is a welcome development - the personalization of justice. A woman arrested for prostitution, let's say, might be able to go to drug court, get sentenced to treatment, get job training, and leave the system with no criminal record. This could be seen as a very compassionate response from a usually cold system.
Critics point out that this actually leaves judges, usually white, well educated, and well-off, in intimate control of the lives of poor people. In the case of mental health courts, judges can certainly find themselves out of their depth. For example, a judge may order that a patient take medication, undergo shock treatments, or change their prescription. This seems unwise to me. Whenever the law and medicine overlap, I get nervous.
The place where the law and medicine invariably overlap is at the point of involuntary commitment. Back in 1954 when my grandmother was committed, my grandfather was at first a willing party. He signed a "complaint" against her and that was enough to have her held in the psychiatric hospital. Later, when he wanted to get her out, the psychiatrists would not release her. The fact that he wished to withdraw his complaint meant nothing. Once she was in the jaws of the beast, there was no getting out.
I'm sure that most judges do their best to make proper decisions, but these courts need an impartial observer to ensure that they are dispensing compassionate justice and not becoming a social or moral kangaroo court.
posted by Christine at Tuesday, April 26, 2005
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