The foundation of the new policy is that New York state will be able to authorize first responders to forcibly hospitalize mentally ill New Yorkers who cannot meet their own basic needs such as food, shelter or medical care.
The foundation of the new policy is that New York state will be able to authorize first responders to forcibly hospitalize mentally ill New Yorkers who cannot meet their own basic needs such as food, shelter or medical care.
Jail isn’t better, and this will be used to hunt the poor even more extensively, not just the homeless. A day late on your rent and keep your apartment messy? Congrats, you get a nice vacation under this proposal.
People who slip by a day and just keep a mess tend to have support networks. If they’re employed, they’re not likely to get thrown in a mental health section in NY. Plus, again, this is New York, not Texas or Florida. Consider the context here. There’s a lot of homeless people in the City who refuse care and get washed through the system. They aren’t getting held in jail, but they’re racking up fines, putting them further behind and worse off. Mandatory care is needed for some people. And we can’t write laws to cover the corner cases without risking overreach.
More people are isolated from support systems than ever before in history, and the rapidly rising homeless population across the US is absolutely a counter to your narrative.
We do need systemic reform. We need housing first solutions to homelessness. Not forced ‘hospitalization’ for anyone too poor to live free and too useless to work for the state as a slave.
Jail and asylums are very different. Jail is a tool for incarceration, it gives us systematic racism. Asylums are for crazy shit, it gives us LORE.
If you think asylums aren’t for incarceration, you’ve clearly never been to one.
“Forcibly hospitalize” is not “jail”.
Completely untrue misinformation.
Yeah, it’s worse, because the only “law” you have to break to get arrested for it is making others uncomfortable.
Forced hospitalization is, at best, the same as jail, at worst, worse than the worst jails in existence. Let’s see how you feel after sedatives and anti psychotics get forcibly put into your system you you statistically get sexually abused by an orderly, see how much unlike jail it is then.
To your second statement, absolutely no part of this proposal limits the action to indigent or houseless persons. If you can’t pay your rent on time you, objectively, cannot house yourself. Congrats, you’re now in a ‘hospital’ and have to prove you’re not crazy. Something that is famously difficult to do in the best situations as it’s proving a negative.
How this bill would be used is not some neoliberal fairy tale wherein only those you personally think should get help are forced to get help; this is yet another criminalization of homelessness that is written vaguely enough to apply to anyone on SNAP or at risk of eviction.
You can’t just walk out of jail 24 hours later because you’ve taken your meds again, or shown that you don’t need to be held.
Well that escalated quickly!
Because it’s not supposed to be limited to just indigent or homeless people. It isn’t pretending to be only aimed at them.
Ah so you’re deliberately being misleading. No, not paying your rent doesn’t make you meet the criteria for being put on a mental health hold.
You don’t have to prove you’re not crazy, they have to prove that you are too mentally unwell to be able to meet your basic needs in the outside world, and no, that doesn’t mean you paid your bills late or accidentally overcooked your steak.
5150 holds are a minimum of 24 and have no maximum. Not ‘just’ 24 hours. You also have to prove the conditions that caused you to be admitted arent going to happen immediately, which is impossible if you’re homeless or were made homeless by your confinement.
To your escalated comment… No shit. That is actual reality and actually what happens. And has been happening. And will likely continue to happen. Even more than non medical prisoners, those forced into hospitalization have such a significantly higher incidence of being assaulted that it’s pretty much the same as explicitly damning them to it.
And to your third point, that’s my point. Its not just going to be used on the unsightly or dangerous, it is an indefinite hold where you have to prove a negative to get out of; one that has extremely low standards to apply, and one that is applied by people that objectively are not trained to make the determination.
I didn’t say they are ONLY 24 hours, read what I said again. I said that you can’t walk out of jail 24 hours later. With mental health holds you absolutely can sometimes, probably most times. Not all, but I didn’t say you could.
If the condition that caused you to be admitted was “being homeless”, which it isn’t.
So you get put on a mental health hold and you just start getting molested by orderlys immediately? What stats do you have for how many people on these holds are sexually abused almost immediately?
But that wasn’t your point. Your point was that it was vague enough so it isn’t only used against the homeless, despite it never being aimed at just the homeless lol.
Sources please :)
The source is the fucking article you’re commenting on, the one that explicitly states being homeless is a mental illness, being unable to procure food legally is a mental illness, and that all first responders, i.e. cops that are absolutely not trained to deal with mental illness, are the sole arbiters of who gets these holds now.
You’re as much of a freedom advocate as Ronald Reagan.
It doesn’t state that at all. That’s your poor reading and comprehension skills at play.
The whole point of this is that now instead of police being dispatched as first responders, it will be unarmed trained mental health professionals. So it’s the exact opposite of what you’re saying it is.