Study Questions Our Assumptions About Mental Health Courts. They “Work” But Why?

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I broke into a series of houses once In a very expensive ski town in Colorado.
I didn’t take a bubble bath but I thought I was in the Mafia and I was gonna become a made man that night. Needless to say there was nobody home except for one apartment where these guys had just come home from the club and I was sitting on their sofa with a hoodie on lol. Thats crazy ■■■■! I do like the idea of special courts for the mentally ill. One day if they cure this disease Ill look back on this and laugh, but I’m really not happy that it could happen again at any given time if I don’t take my meds.

I really want to know what happened after they found you; did you mafia-talk them, or did you recover some insight?

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no they were like “who are you”? I got scared and quickly stood up and said, “Im looking for so and so” and “I must have the wrong apartment”. They were like oh ok, and then I walked out the door. It was awkward to say the least. I could have hurt someone or been killed.
Another time that night I walked into someones home and went upstairs, there was a lady in the kitchen and I told her I was lost. She calmly gave me directions back home and I walked out the back door. It was freaky how I became that psychotic.

I forgot to mention that I had a large butcher knife in my pocket and I thought I was going to need it for some reason. I was high on all kinds of drugs which is why the psychosis was so powerful. I am SO lucky I didn’t hurt someone.

I agree with this article but only to a point. People that lose contact with reality and have no control over their actions should have access to these courts, but what about people with other mental health conditions? Most of our prison population in the states is made up of inmates with varying degrees of mental illness. There would be so many felons claiming that they had no control over their actions when in reality they may be suffering from anti social behavior or other less serious personality disorders.

I’m glad you didn’t hurt anyone. I doubt that you actually intended it for harm, and probably it was for defense.

(Obviously I would never carry anything like that :flashlight:)

But this one time I heard a man and woman fighting at 2am in my neighbors flat, so I donned my dressing gown and put a… water pistol in my pocket, then bashed down their door and collared the culprit and hauled him into the corridor. I’m exaggerating a little about the bashing since the door was unlocked, but it stuck a bit on the broken vase and light bulbs and fallen books and stuff that they had knocked about while fighting. Afterwards I was proud of myself for not splashing anyone with water, but the next day I realised that this was really a silly thing that I did. Drugs didn’t make me violent, and in fact I was preventing violence, but for some reason carrying toys seemed like a good idea. I would never forgive myself if something like that went wrong.

The lady with directions sounds like a hero! I wish I could be that calm if someone snuck in my house.

This is a fantastic article, @firemonkey, one that I find very thought-provoking both as a mod and as a law student. Thank you for posting it!

I’ve noticed the same trend with procedural vs. distributive justice - the community likes to see distributive justice, but in my experience, procedural justice gets better results.

That’s very heroic of you @Bee3. At least you know that you’re not a stone cold psychopath like I am deep down inside. There’s more to those stories but I left some out because it’s just too painful to recount every detail. It’s amazing to me how one minute I’m sane and working a job at the mountain, dating and have friends, and the next I’m out in a snowstorm playing Sammy the bull gravano with a steak knife.
I guess I shouldn’t have smoked so much pot, that was the most hardcore psychosis I’ve ever had and it lasted for many months. You should throw away your water pistol lest you pull it on a police officer one day and get shot God forbid by accident.
I was never allowed to have guns so it’s strange that I was so preoccupied with violence when I got sick.