[danShumway]

> we must try

Start with the existing system then. If you think we can do better, prove it. Bring that same level of optimism into improving existing standards of medical care -- then come back and we'll talk about expanding those systems.

> we never actually get started doing anything meaingful.

I think this regularly gets pulled out as a justification for expanding systems that have significant problems, and critics are supposed to take it at face value that we're all going to earnestly try to do better this time. But without something more concrete behind it, it's just talk, and talk is cheap. What often ends up happening is the same negative outcomes are expanded, and then the process repeats with the exact same line -- again and again and again.

So let's all get together and fix at least a few of the things that are already broken, and then maybe I'll believe you that we can all band together and build something new. But this kind of optimism divorced from practical action doesn't actually address concerns and doesn't actually improve existing or future standards.

I'm not saying everything needs to be perfect before we do anything new, of course that's never going to be the case. But I am saying that if all of our existing systems are garbage, the words "we must try" need to be backed up with something much more tangible than anyone is providing in this comments section.

[iancmceachern]

>Start with the existing system then

That is exactly what this original article is about.

The article, and me in these comments, have been proposing to do exactly this. Bring back much of the old system that has been sustematically dismantled over the last 70 years, with improvements of course.

I think you are missing a lot of the context here.

[danShumway]

> Bring back much of the old system that has been sustematically dismantled over the last 70 years

That is not at all what I meant by "existing system" :)

"Start with the existing system" means "prove the US is capable of imprisoning people without regularly subjecting them to horrible conditions." That we used to run an even more expansive prison system doesn't mean that bringing that prison system back under the guise of medical care wouldn't be an expansion of the current system. The old system was torn down for a reason, and reintroducing it now would be an expansion of the current prison system.

We very deliberately systematically dismantled the old system of asylums because they were incredibly abusive. And unfortunately, the remnants of that system are still abusive today. My point is that "we have a long way to go but we have to try" doesn't mean very much when it's just words. Advocates for asylums should start by addressing some of the abuses that are still rampant today in the systems that are operating right now -- let's see some evidence that re-expanding the prison system won't be a horrible disaster for human rights, let's see some actual improvements to prisons that already exist today to back up that optimism.

----

The risk behind untested optimism is that every expansion of the prison system can be excused this way. Any abuse that results in cutting back on incarceration becomes temporary and it's assumed that "getting back to normal" and reintroducing those systems is the normal desired state, rather than a dangerous step backwards towards a system that was consciously rejected for good reason. And advocates that argue (deliberately or not) for expanding and reintroducing systems of abuse can just keep saying "we'll do better this time, this time we'll have reforms."

Nah. Let's see some of those reforms in existing prisons as they exist now for regular prisoners. Let's see standards rise for the prisoners with and without mental issues that we already have in jail today. Then we'll talk about whether expanding from what we have today is wise.