When ‘Not Guilty’ Is a Life Sentence

Long but interesting recent article in the NYT.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/maga ... tence.html

The question, according to Dvoskin, “becomes one of risk tolerance. America has become — to an extreme level that’s almost impossible to exaggerate — a risk-intolerant society.” Fears of people with mental illness persist, even though, according to the best estimates, only 4 percent of violent acts in the United States are uniquely attributable to serious mental illness. One study has found that those with mental illness are actually less likely to be seriously violent than the general population. (In addition, some N.G.R.I.s have been acquitted of nonviolent crimes, like public-order offenses, traffic offenses and prostitution.)

There is no outcry, from the public or politicians, for alternatives to indefinitely institutionalizing N.G.R.I.s. After 45 years of studying the issue and filing lawsuits on behalf of patients, Michael Perlin, an emeritus professor at New York Law School and an expert on mental-disability law, thinks he knows why: “Everybody except for people who take the Constitution seriously and people who are in the hospital are happy the patients are there. Prosecutors, police, they’re glad they’re not going anywhere. I believe that the disability rights community has never gotten substantially involved in the issue because some of the people have been charged with very horrific crimes.”

Problem is that many people where I was were locked up for years after minor crimes - 2 years for disorderly conduct was one. I got 2 years for misdemeanor simple assault.

I want to ask (only If you feel comfortable sharing) how was the environment in that place? Did it help in any way? I think that also plays a huge role IMO.

The more I read various accounts of people pleading NGRI for relatively minor crimes it just shows how our justice system is so skewed against the poor. Public defenders are usually the ones who convince their clients to plead this. If they had access to a private attorney, I'm sure they would never be encouraged to plead NGRI. It is far worse than just going to jail where you still have some rights and a set limit to the amount of time you have to spend in jail.

Riccola wrote:I want to ask (only If you feel comfortable sharing) how was the environment in that place? Did it help in any way? I think that also plays a huge role IMO.

It was bad, but there are worse places. They were violating patients civil liberties and finally got found guilty of it by the US Justice Department 10 years after I was discharged. One of the findings was inappropriate diagnoses, which is what they did to me. But when I saw the DOJ report and talked to the medical director of the hospital about it he still denied there were inappropriate diagnoses - he said that was misreported by the press. The I pointed to the DOJ report where it said that and he said that didn't mean that the diagnoses were wrong. They just never admit anything.

All they do is lie and lie and lie and lie. Even my public defender lied to me. I could go on for pages. It could get really frustrating how they misrepresented everything I said and twisted it to make it look like I was really a delusional retard. It's like that joke where the shrink asks the guy how his childhood was. The guy says 'perfectly normal' and the shrink says 'so you wanted to kill your father and sleep with your mother.'

At first I didn't know they would do that so I gave them lots of ammunition to use against me. When I complained that my lawyer did a bad job they wrote in my chart that I threatened my lawyer. Any time I complained about what someone did they just wrote in the chart that I threatened the person. At one point I found out there were multiple duty to warn notifications about me - but they would not tell me who was getting them. They could have given one to any person whose name I mentioned because they lied and said I threatened them. I told the p-doc that it wasn't fair and that the child molesters who railroaded me shouldn't get more information to use against me. He said they didn't know anything because my diagnosis and treatment were all confidential. I told him that was such a bunch of $#%^ - the child molesters know all about it because one heard all the forensic shrinks testimony in my commitment hearing. He was allowed to sit in court and listen to the entire thing. My p-doc said "that's not supposed to happen.' Great. Not supposed to happen.

Parador wrote:
...They just never admit anything...

All they do is lie and lie and lie and lie. Even my public defender lied to me. I could go on for pages. It could get really frustrating how they misrepresented everything I said and twisted it to make it look like I was really a delusional retard...

At first I didn't know they would do that so I gave them lots of ammunition to use against me. When I complained that my lawyer did a bad job they wrote in my chart that I threatened my lawyer. Any time I complained about what someone did they just wrote in the chart that I threatened the person.

It seems in their eyes and in the eyes of the goverment, the media, and sadly, the general public, they can do no wrong. So they never have to admit to anything.

I was shocked about how much they lied to me and especially to others about me. I can't trust them at all now.

And if there was anything I could tell people with mental illness it would be that they will try to use everything you say to them against you. We are often our own worst enemies when we talk to them. Our words get recorded in one format or another and then find their way into the mental health court hearing. And they take it out of context and emphasize certain parts of it to make us look like a danger to ourselves or others.

Parador wrote:Long but interesting recent article in the NYT.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/maga ... tence.html

Thanks for sharing this excellent article and interesting thread. I totally agree that forensic psychiatry units operate on the premise that any thing you say will be used against you. This also has been my experience on most hospital psych wards in the country I live in although not as extreme and relentless.

freyja wrote: I totally agree that forensic psychiatry units operate on the premise that any thing you say will be used against you. This also has been my experience on most hospital psych wards in the country I live in although not as extreme and relentless.

Think of how much more difficult we could make their job for them if everyone knew this?

I'm not invoking bad intent by the way. It isn't necessary to have bad intentions. It is just the way the system is constructed and how the whole structure is based on the power and control of psychiatrist. There is also the sad fact that there is literally not a single objective test that can be done to determine whether someone has a mental illness. It is all opinion.

freyja wrote:I'm not invoking bad intent by the way. It isn't necessary to have bad intentions. It is just the way the system is constructed and how the whole structure is based on the power and control of psychiatrist. There is also the sad fact that there is literally not a single objective test that can be done to determine whether someone has a mental illness. It is all opinion.

Try to imagine an actual "science" trying to justify its scientific status based solely on opinion. And yet, the media, the courts, and unfortunately most people accept what they say, thinking they are rooted in sound science.

Most of the time I've been my own worst enemy by not being careful about what I said.