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Comment by dmatech | Hacker News Reader

The main concern these days is with people with specific mental illnesses or addictions that make them unable to comply with treatment. Schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder are some of the more obvious ones. One can argue that there's a human right to be insane, but most of us would prefer not to be pushed in front of an oncoming subway train.

People with a good support network might find it easier to comply with medical orders than someone in a very precarious living situation. So forced institutionalization will likely affect the marginalized the most. It's still the right thing to do if the risk is severe enough.

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> One can argue that there's a human right to be insane, but most of us would prefer not to be pushed in front of an oncoming subway train.

This is a bit of a flawed argument-- it's not clear that people with severe mental illness are more violent than the general population, and if they are, it's not by a huge margin.

It's also flawed because we already can forcibly hospitalize people who we can prove are a danger to others. (Yes, I'm aware a whole lot slip through the cracks, but this is a resources and administrative capacity issue, not an issue of the laws we're operating under).

People with severe mental illness are actually more likely to be victims of violence, not perpetrators of it.

The data are of poor quality and confounded. I've become convinced that severely mentally ill people are generally not too much more violent, but I can't express a belief that the numbers are actually equal or less (they may be, but I have no specific belief).

>"This is a bit of a flawed argument-- it's not clear that people with severe mental illness are more violent than the general population, and if they are, it's not by a huge margin."

Have you been around schizophrenics ? Particularly those that go off meds ? And many do from time to time. "Mental Illness" is a broad term. But people with psychosis (the two most major and "severe" diagnosable forms being schizophrenia and bipolar) are clearly more prone to violence, particularly schizophrenics and particularly those who don't take their meds. Anyone having any experience with those haunted with psychosis can absolutely agree they are more prone to violence. I agree with being able to hospitalize people who prove dangerous but it is usually for a very short period of time to deal with some acute episode.

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