The US: Child Abuse Capital of the Industrialized World.

I kind of expected the benefit of the doubt that I wasn't advocating hellish, abusive asylums of the damned.

Well, right, of course, but when I was reading about those places in my youth, it sure sounded like they ended up BEING that way so frequently that I think just saying "we want it to be nice" probably isn't enough. I think very few people, probably none, started with the intention of making them hellish, but somehow they ended up that way anyway.

I had a boss who was a trained psychiatrist who worked in a psychiatric hospital, and you just would not believe the stories he had. The corruption and cynicism in whatever facility he'd worked in was breathtaking, and this wasn't that long ago... probably sometime in the early 90s.

Great, sounds like it was an unethically run facility in the early 90s--not that long ago, or twenty years ago, depending. My specific example is an ethically run facility in 2008, my long-term proposition is an ethically run facility in whichever year we find ourselves can be an invaluable tool in breaking abusive cycles, but they need proper funding.

Right, but they're the first sorts of things to have their funding cut, so even if you start them well-funded, they end up starved of money and abusive of patients. Maybe it would be better not to start the programs at all.

Malor wrote:

Right, but they're the first sorts of things to have their funding cut, so even if you start them well-funded, they end up starved of money and abusive of patients. Maybe it would be better not to start the programs at all.

I think the people that they help while they're well funded would disagree with you.
Edit - I'm pretty sure SpacePPoliceman's proposal isn't to have a well funded and ethically run facility and then cut it's funding after a random number of years.

Stengah wrote:
Malor wrote:

Right, but they're the first sorts of things to have their funding cut, so even if you start them well-funded, they end up starved of money and abusive of patients. Maybe it would be better not to start the programs at all.

I think the people that they help while they're well funded would disagree with you.
Edit - I'm pretty sure SpacePPoliceman's proposal isn't to have a well funded and ethically run facility and then cut it's funding after a random number of years.

Wow. That sounds like a Vaultec experiment.

I'm pretty sure SpacePPoliceman's proposal isn't to have a well funded and ethically run facility and then cut it's funding after a random number of years.

Oh, I'm certain it isn't. But I think that's what will actually happen.

Wow. Hilarious. Should we also not build roads because they inevitably get potholes and destroy tires? Honestly, it's hard to take this seriously as a criticism. Correct, things suck when they don't get the support they need. There are an ass-ton of programs throughout the country that do manage to get that support--hell, we have plenty of threads about our defense spending. Your opinions don't change the simple fact that a solid mental health infrastructure will help preventing child abuse immensely. So that's why we bother to start programs at all--the victims don't go away because they're ignored, and many of them eventually become abusers, if they haven't already.

And Ignore seems to be what you're advocating, since you've offered nothing else, though you keep trying to cast it as a deep concern for the way patients are treated. Fact is, facilities don't get abusive when funding is cut--they stop taking on patients period, which leaves most of those in need of help unable to get it.

Stengah wrote:

Edit - I'm pretty sure SpacePPoliceman's proposal isn't to have a well funded and ethically run facility and then cut it's funding after a random number of years.

You are correct, Sten. At the same time, patient turn-over was very high, sometimes because they did something that required a higher level of care, sometimes because they'd proven they were ready to go back to a mainstream school. A few years of good funding isn't a permanent solution for a society, but for an individual it can turn their life around. So, it'd be better than nothing.

We shouldn't build a military because if it doesn't have sufficient funding, it will make us susceptible to foreign invasion.

We shouldn't have a space program because when we cut funding we could have a space station with no way to support and resupply it.
Aw sh*t, I just made myself sad.

Yonder wrote:

We shouldn't have a space program because when we cut funding we could have a space station with no way to support and resupply it.
Aw sh*t, I just made myself sad.

Don't worry, the private sector will step in and make everything ok again:
IMAGE(http://www.mogulite.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Branson-and-Virgin-Galactic.jpg)

Government shouldn't be in the food and water safety business because when those programs become unfunded we'll all die of food poisoning and dysentery.

Humans shouldn't procreate since we all die eventually.

Homer Simpson wrote:

If you don't try, you don't fail.

Fact is, facilities don't get abusive when funding is cut--they stop taking on patients period, which leaves most of those in need of help unable to get it.

Then why did so many facilities become abusive in the past? Weren't you the one who said they got nasty because their funding was cut?

We're going into a time of greatly reduced expectations. Starting expensive new programs that are dependent on the goodwill and continued funding of government bodies would be a very bad idea at the moment. We'll be lucky to be keeping up with the food and water safety.

Malor wrote:
Fact is, facilities don't get abusive when funding is cut--they stop taking on patients period, which leaves most of those in need of help unable to get it.

Then why did so many facilities become abusive in the past? Weren't you the one who said they got nasty because their funding was cut?

No, I was not--you're the one who keeps bringing up abusive facilities, again, because it sounds better than advocating straight up ignoring. I'd say facilities became abusive in those readings from your youth because they started that way, because there wasn't a lot of oversight, or knowledge. We have a far better, more nuanced understanding of mental illness these days, in that we have an understanding at all, and we have oversight. Kinda like how a barber in the Middle Ages wasn't so hot at treating people, but these days a compound fracture doesn't have to be a death sentence.

As for funding being finite: again, we have plenty of threads here about defense spending.

Malor wrote:

Do we even know what a 'good' institution would look like? The history of sanitoriums of all sorts is dire.

Yes, an example of a good institution would be the one SpacePPoliceman worked for before it lost its budget. Here's a link in case you missed it.

Actually, I'm bringing them up because my expectation of the mental health system is that it's abusive and profiteering. I haven't been exposed to it myself, but I did read a fair bit about it, and I had a boss who had directly worked in it, and his reports were of abuses even worse than the ones I'd previously heard about. He was a pretty idealistic guy, and I think he was wounded very deeply by his time as a treater in that system, not even as a patient.

From what I've heard of those facilities, many kids would be better off staying home. And I'm not sure it's a good idea to limit the socialization opportunities of sick kids to be only other sick kids.

Do we even know what a 'good' institution would look like? The history of sanitoriums of all sorts is dire.

Yeah, you brought up the readings from your youth and your boss who worked in one 2 decades ago. I'd say, Yes, we do know what a good institution looks like, and No, many of these kids would not be better off staying in abusive homes. Seriously. Profiteering off mental health is an issue on the level of NPR's contribution to the deficit. There is precious little profit to be made from the care of a meth-addicted 15 year old child molester, because as you've made abundantly clear, no one cares.

Edit: Haw haw, I got Tann'ed a bit.