choose to be a loner without a doctor or relative having the ability to lock me up without due process.
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I can see you’ve never had to deal with the mental health system.
Only 2 ways to get someone locked up (and even then only for 72 hours) - at least here in Maryland.
1) take the person to the ER, wait an eternity for the attending psychiatrist to examine the patient, and declare them a danger to self/others for an involuntary stay, or to agree to be admitted on their own.
2) Go to the circuit court and swear out a warrant for observation, and the cops pick the individual up and take them to the nearest hospital for observation (at which point it looks like #1 above).
In either scenario, within 72 hours a hearing with a master must be held, and they lean VERY strongly in favor of the patient, in terms of keeping them or releasing them.
I have to say that you have no idea what the human brain can convince itself of (and I count that as a really good thing). It completely freaked me out on more than one occasion. Their delusions are absolutely real to them.
I understand what you are saying, but
1. How can you change this while making sure constitutional rights are protected? Who decides who gets locked up? Judge? Doctor? Relative? Jury of peers? My sister is a raging b*tch and nobody in the family talks to her. Should we be allowed to have her detained on our own word that she is crazy?
And under what basis if no crime is committed? You can obviously act on threats and known planned conspiracies, but those laws already exist.
2. I have seen nothing in the news, even in the most sensationalist stories, that would tell me that this man needed to be locked up and someone dropped the ball. He was obviously a loner and socially inept, perhaps slightly autistic, but that alone doesn’t make one a danger. There are millions of those out there that live and will continue to live non-violent, criminal free lives.