Mick Hartley

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The Mental Health Bill

Matthew Syed on the Mental Health Bill:

The Bill, which suffered a number of defeats in the House of Lords on Monday, widens the scope of those who can be forcibly detained by mental health professionals, even if locking them up has no therapeutic benefit for the patient.

In other words, the Government is content for a mentally ill person who is innocent of any crime to be locked up, even if he will not benefit from being in custody.

It is highly unlikely that there will be a public outcry at the prospect of banging up a load of dangerous nutcases — but it is for this reason that we should be particularly suspicious of the Government’s inclination to press ahead despite the concerns of their lordships.

The fundamental flaw in the Bill is essentially mathematical. When we lock people up on the basis of the risk that they are thought to pose to the public, then there is a corresponding risk that we will end up detaining people who, in reality, would have posed no threat at all of committing a crime.

Well no: if the problem is that some of the detained people wouldn’t, in fact, have gone on to commit a crime, that’s implying that there’s no problem in locking people up who would have committed a crime. That it’s all a question of getting the balance right. That’s conceding far too much. The fundamental flaw in the bill is that it advocates depriving people of their liberty when they have done absolutely nothing wrong: that people can be imprisoned for what they are rather than for what they do – a very unpleasant precedent.

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5 responses to “The Mental Health Bill”

  1. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    Is your only objection that it would be a precedent?

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  2. IanCroydon Avatar
    IanCroydon

    “that people can be imprisoned for what they are rather than for what they do – a very unpleasant precedent.”
    I’d contend that the flaw in your argument is your supposition that this bill represents that some people just “are” mentally ill and are judged thus.
    However, the reality is that someone is deemed to be mentally ill on the basis of their past history, actions and behaviour, how else are they assessed if this is not the case ?
    So someone is being locked up for what they “do”.

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  3. Mick H Avatar
    Mick H

    Strictly speaking of course you’re right, but then that’s our only way of judging what someone is. If someone’s a communist we know this because of what they do, or say. If they’re then locked up on those grounds it would seem reasonable to me to phrase my objections in terms of their being incriminated for what they are rather than what they’ve done. Same if someone’s judged mentally unstable and locked up on those grounds. Yes, ultimately they’re being locked up for what they’ve said or done, but what they’ve said or done in itself isn’t cause for their loss of liberty.
    It’s easy to envisage a stage where brain scans could be used to determine mental illness. Nothing to do with past behaviour. No, we’re not at that stage yet, but with bills like this, you can see how things might go.

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  4. IanCroydon Avatar
    IanCroydon

    Aren’t we already on sticky grounds when it comes to locking people up for “incitement to violence” ? Having crossed that barrier long ago, this development is hardly surprising, so your fears of communist internment are with us already.
    From a purely logical point of view a person has done nothing but voice opinion in a certain manner, the rules lie in and about the canard of when you shout “fire” in a crowded theatre, you can spend all day debating about liberty on that one, but it wont stop someone shouting “fire”.
    I understand that, in law, the threat of violence is considered as bad as the violence itself. A simple act of a threat is still what a person will “do”, you can extend this forever, and we now even have a law that will prosecute a threat to entice others to threaten violence (!).
    Ultimately we will always have to judge whether a persons actions have profound reciprocal effects that impact the well being of others, call it “public consideration” if you will. It matters not what a person’s religious, political or other affiliations are, it is their behaviour that matters, and that is what they “do” and how they are being judged.
    A “mentally ill” person is being judged on those same lines, but to be honest, from what I hear of some people spouting their rhetoric religious or political views, I rather think they are all one and the same.
    Maintaining public order in society demands certain modes of behaviour from members of that society, whilst the extremes of this are effectively what cause one to cry “police state”, the fact is that social behaviour is always necessary to police, it is the conditions by which we judge behaviour that matter, not that we judge it at all or what methods we use.
    Your allusions to a slippery slope are perfunctory, so what if we can detect mental illness via brain scan, if its a method that can be proven to be within the grounds of liberty in the same way a trial by judge and jury can, then perhaps it’s a better way. If you’ve already agreed with the idea that a violent mental patient needs to be locked up, then the argument is ended.
    Actually, I think I’ve just said what the first poster did.

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  5. DaninVan Avatar
    DaninVan

    I’m sitting here with my jaw down around my knees. People are committed to Pschyiatric facilities, for non-criminal behaviour (in a manner of speaking), on the basis of medical assessment, not criminal.
    I would suggest those actions are taken where the detainee poses a serious threat to him/herself or to others based on exhibited behaviour, and as well there are those that are simply unable to function on their own.
    Those harmful actions may well be of a probable nature, not actual but the confinement is the same, just a different facility and detainment process.

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