Law
While the insanity defense is the subject of controversy as a viable excuse for wrongdoing, Szasz and other critics contend that being committed in a psychiatric hospital can be worse than criminal imprisonment, since it involves the risk of compulsory medication with neuroleptics or the use of electroshock treatment. Moreover, while a criminal imprisonment has a predetermined and known time of duration, patients are typically committed to psychiatric hospitals for indefinite durations, an unjust and arguably outrageous imposition of fundamental uncertainty. It has been argued that such uncertainty risks aggravating mental instability, and that it substantially encourages a lapse into hopelessness and acceptance that precludes recovery.
Read more about this topic: Anti-psychiatry
Famous quotes containing the word law:
“I do not believe in lawyers, in that mode of attacking or defending a man, because you descend to meet the judge on his own ground, and, in cases of the highest importance, it is of no consequence whether a man breaks a human law or not. Let lawyers decide trivial cases.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The law is a great thing,—because men are poor and weak, and bad. And it is great, because where it exists in its strength, no tyrant can be above it. But between you and me there should be no mention of law as the guide of conduct. Speak to me of honour, and of duty, and of nobility; and tell me what they require of you.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
—Bible: New Testament, Galatians 6:2.