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Comment by c22 | Hacker News Reader

I agree with your general sentiment, but speaking as someone who has been in jail and also involuntarily committed on multiple occasions, jail is much much worse.

All the downsides you listed apply to jail time also, but the food is more terrible, the environment more restrictive, and the opportunities for extricating yourself (if you are reasonably cogent) are greatly reduced.

Also, ironically, being in jail on suicide watch is preferable to being in general population.

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Thanks for the perspective. I have never experienced either directly so at best I'm speculating although I've been around many people who have been through both.

My basis for making that comment is that at least ostensibly you get due process in the legal system.

Hope you came out the other side in a good place.

Involuntary commitment from mental health is a min. 72 hours here, but I think you can be in and out of a drunk tank faster than that, which is usually just a few hours to sober up. I could see a bail hearing happening quick enough that you get in and out before 72 hours, but I don't know how common that is.

Arraignment in most places is max 48-72hrs after arrest (except possibly for legal holidays) and unless the crime is serious you will usually be released after that.

It's true that you'll be stuck in the mental hospital for at least a week (those are 72 business hours). I couldn't afford bail, though, so I was stuck in jail for 3 months[0]. There were plenty of other inmates there in similar situations. YMMV.

[0] That's how long it took for me to get a court date at which point I was released with time served (2 weeks). Getting out of the mental hospital never even required a lawyer (though I'd still recommend retaining one if you're ever in this situation).

>"I couldn't afford bail, though, so I was stuck in jail for 3 months[0]. There were plenty of other inmates there in similar situations"

Some justice here. Instead of singing songs about rights abuses in whatever country they decided not to like at the moment why don't they look and fix things under their own fucking noses.

Why in hell are there things called "bail" and "time served" that apply to mental treatment? Do they think it's some kind of crime that has to be punished?

c22 is "speaking as someone who has been in jail and also involuntarily committed on multiple occasions". The bail and time served are regarding the jail time, not the mental treatment.

Having worked in emergency psychiatry services, I can say it's super common for people to wake up or become lucid and immediately think they're in jail.

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