FWIW, RPRNY's post contained the fewest number of quotes of almost any post recently; so a different way of accomplishing the 'dialogue.' I will take a page and refrain from quotes (which make it easy to thoroughly address an argument and serve as reference material, but which I can understand might make criticism seem more personal)
The inherent rate of false incarcerations is exactly the problem with ever broader approaches. Our system weights false positives far more strongly than false negatives (and for good reason) so they must be properly addressed before an initiative can be put into place. That is the system of checks and balances at its core.
Complicating this particular issue, is the belief that the types of people who would likely be swept up in the dragline would benefit from the proposed program whether or not they really need it (committal/treatment).
Even if this is true, it has nothing to do with the justification for involuntary committal; it is
not done for the good of the one committed. It is done to keep them from
harming, through physical violence, others (or themselves). It has nothing to do with helping them, because it may not lead to a positive end for them. But it removes the threat they posed to themselves and others for the most part.
We don't forcibly treat with medicine, or incarcerate in prisons, people who "may" need such measures if they continue on their current path. This is because our system allows for free will in individuals so long as their actions do not conflict with the rights of others. Guilty until proven innocent, and the purpose of public mental health treatment is the same as that of the penal system; it just accepts that classic punishment is unlikely to have a positive effect and seeks a different way of solving the same problem (people causing harm to others that abide by the rules). And even our prison systems have drifted closer toward this line of thinking, with rehabilitation, education, and training programs aimed beyond mere punishment, as a way of hopefully increasing the effectiveness of the endeavor (whole other can of worms, that, but that's the theory, at least).
It may be worth noting that the whole concept of monitored incarceration being curative didn't even exist until the late 1700's or so, IIRC, when penitentiary and asylum complexes began appearing. Before then, it was punishment/debt based Puritan thinking where a crime was repaid in labor or beatings, and the ordeal made intentionally horrible so as to make re-offense distasteful (never mind whether or not the offender had many options besides crime). My history is a little rough, but I recall the theory behind the curative prison model was 'modern society is chaotic and breeds dischord, so let these animals be civilized by ultimate order, so that all may live in harmony' and was one of the earliest manifestations of classical populism in social policy (ironic, I know). The reason they sprang up in the US and Europe was that Enlightenment-era scientific study was being mis-applied to social problems (then as ever), and the proponents of the theory became
convinced they had determined the cause of crime, poverty, and madness, and that they could be cured by state intervention. It's been a long journey since then, but we haven't move far from that initial theory to this day, though with very dubious results at great expense in the interim.
I told you we'd getcha in our corner.
Good thing, too, because we'll always need all the help and force of will we can get. Speaking of numbers, think how much easier, in numerical terms (quantity of money, people, words in proposals & slogans, etc.) it is to tout a simplistic, ham fisted approach that won't accomplish anything to a mostly-ambivalent public, and you can see further why we "can't give one inch." It really does just take one crazy person --one crazed, ambitious politician-- to undo the careful framework of laws and protections if we mete them
any part of the way. And before we can formulate a plan to undo the damage they caused, the debate has shifted or some new 'crisis' arisen that steals our attention and allows the last infringement to take firm root. The slippery slope metaphor is very valid, but more in describing the effort required to stay aloft and the inevitable decline accompanying slack in our resolve (there's no top to the slippery slope, just a bottom; at least, we have not reached an apex so far in history)
TCB
