Psychiatric imprisonment

Psychiatric imprisonment refers to the involuntary imprisonmentof people in psychiatric institutionon the grounds that they are considered psychiatrically insane. In many countries, people behaving in such a way considered insane by a judgecan be put into a mental institutionwithout trial. Critics argue that an open societybased on freedom and personal responsibility has no room for treatment of this nature.

In some countries, activities such as homosexualityand adulterycan result in such imprisonment. In countries such as the former U.S.S.R., and modern day Chinasuch facilities were, or currently are, routinely used to imprison and "treat" dissidents. Currently in China"political harm to society" is legally a dangerous mental disorder and the authorities are instructed to arrestthose who make anti-government speeches, write reactionary letters or "express opinions on important domestic and international affairs".

There are also claims that in North Korea, Canadaand the U.S.A., amongst others, that similar events are going on on a smaller scale. It is part of both the criminal justiceand hospitalsystems in the countries in which it happens, and it often has an ambiguous relationship to these.

Dr. Thomas Szaszargued that while these practices may have begun as an alternative to punishment, specifically retributive justice, in the U.S.A. they had become by the 1960sa means of defining mere differences as illnesses.

References

Black Hands of Beijing: Lives of Defiance in China's Democracy Movement, by George Black and Robin Munro (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1993

See also

• Criminal justice
• Involuntary commitment
• Psychiatry
• Freedom of association
• Personal conduct
• Psikhushka
• Political prisoner

External links

• Psychiatric Imprisonment in Oregon
• Amnesty International

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric+imprisonment Wikipedia article Psychiatric imprisonment.