BACK TO THE ASYLUM docx

[...]... college campuses and in law schools reflect the general political and social climate of the country The mentally ill also have been touched by this wider context The clear trend today in mental health law is to return mentally ill offenders and other 20 BACK TO THE ASYLUM disturbed citizens to the "asylum" of either a prison or a hospital The current wisdom holds that these individuals and—more important—society... proportions, that politicians and the public took note Furthermore, mentally ill people who disrupted their neighbors could not be detained unless they caused actual harm to themselves or others Free at home or on the streets, some continued to be a nuisance to their families and neighbors; some committed serious crimes The interests of the community took a back seat to individual liberties Until recently,... and the Neoconservative eras By contrasting the values and ideology of one 6 BACK TO THE ASYLUM era with another, we gain a clearer vision of how mental health law and policy has evolved—and where it might be headed next We call the decades of the 1960s and 1970s the Liberal Era because of the emphasis placed on individual freedom and fairness to the individual— even at the expense of the community The. .. their authority to shape public policy.46 They did not stop at simply issuing orders to correct past violations of "rights"; they also set out to reform entire institutions through long-term monitoring of their orders, an endeavor previously considered off-limits for judicial action.47 Perhaps as important, the Warren Court permitted greater accessibility to the federal court system.48 12 BACK TO THE. .. America was reflected in electoral politics, appointments to the federal judiciary, and cutbacks in social welfare programs As the close of the twentieth century draws near, general disaffection with the elevation of individual rights over the rights of the majority has set the pendulum of social movement into motion once again.61 The scene has been set for a "return to the asylum" so that society can... more tolerant attitude toward individual differences and the promotion of individual rights During the Liberal Era, communities turned a blind eye to their presence as long as they remained mostly invisible within the community For the most part, these people lived out-of-sight in urban skid rows, in rural areas, or otherwise off the beaten path It was not until the 1980s, when the swelling ranks of the. .. to present a comprehensive history of these three decades—historians have already begun to apply their craft to that task.11 Instead, we wish to provide an overview to refresh the reader's memory about these turbulent times In doing so, we set the stage for why and in what context mental health policy and law took its particular direction Dynamic social, political, and economic forces shaped both the. .. confessions by criminals if the police had not advised them of their newly recognized constitutional rights This meant that even if some suspects had been "caught in the act," unless they were informed of their so-called Miranda rights the right to remain silent and to request the help of a lawyer—they might not be convicted and had to be released Starting in the late 1950s and throughout the Liberal Era, hundreds... been two of the more obvious manifestations of the Neoconservative Era, a central hallmark of this religious revival is an insistence on individual responsibility 16 BACK TO THE ASYLUM Neoconservative allegiance to the free market system—particularly the private sector—expresses a corresponding preference for the autonomy and self-sufficiency of the individual Neoconservatives object to bureaucratic... reluctant to pursue these kinds of cases In short, the courts, with the blessing of the Supreme Court, have transformed themselves from anvils of change to anchors of the status quo Why? From 1980 to 1988, President Reagan appointed a large number of conservative judges to the federal bench, among them Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and Antonin Scalia, who is known for his hard law-andorder stance There . h0" alt="" BACK TO THE ASYLUM This page intentionally left blank BACK TO THE ASYLUM The Future of Mental Health Law and Policy in the United. is the enormous ambivalence toward the 'sick' reflected in conflicting wishes to exculpate and to blame; to sanction and not to