03-04-2014, 03:05 PM
(03-04-2014, 02:48 PM)Cynical Ninja Wrote: Its the same here.
Lots of people with mental health problems are locked up in police cells, they haven't done anything wrong there's just nowhere else to put them!
The logic is at least if they are in a police cells they can't harm themselves its fucking ridiculous.
Both American and British justice systems are flawed for different reasons.
Interesting.
I didn't realize that mentally ill people in the UK were put in jail cells, if psychiatric beds were short, without having committed a crime. Here, they can't be arrested and incarcerated unless they've committed a crime; jail/prison isn't a preventative measure. I think desperate mentally ill persons who recognize their conditions sometimes commit crimes in order to be arrested and get inmate benefits.
It's a sad state of affairs either way (IMO) given how far the medical professionals have come in the last half century or so in terms of recognizing and treating mental illnesses seriously. It's no longer so much about not understanding the illnesses, but too often inaccessibility to treatment.