Very recent history would warn us that this is a bad idea. The Soviet Union famously declared dissidents as "mentally ill" and used that as an excuse to lock them away. Does the US want to follow in the Soviet's footsteps?
That has little to do with the discussion from the article. The USSR was going to invent some pretext or other anyway, that was simply the chosen one.
There certainly will be a problematic interface with the system, as the diagnostic process will have a non-zero error rate. And the not-ill will have a bone to pick over false positives, while the mentally ill that aren't treated won't complain.
> The USSR was going to invent some pretext or other anyway, that was simply the chosen one.
I've little knowledge of Russian mental health facilities. If I were to imagine the worst, I'd put them against FL's 5 state institutions - which are true hellholes. There is a long history of patients and staff dying there.
They're beyond full and understaffed. There's no room to add anyone.
What's more common are private care facilities and the VA. Both of which I have a fair amount of experience with, while caring for my spouse.
They can be quite good. Private inpatient facilities are mostly unavailable for the uninsured though.
I'd comment on fully public, inpatient, mental healthcare facilities but I don't know of any in the SE. I've looked.
> The Soviet Union famously declared dissidents as "mentally ill" and used that as an excuse to lock them away. Does the US want to follow in the Soviet's footsteps?
It is difficult to weaponize mental healthcare in the US.
Our quality of care is expensive and is often quite good. It's costly enough that most of the US is dominated by a lack of mental healthcare for the poor.
In other words, we can't get willing people locked up. And some types of care, like long-term inpatient, is only available to the wealthy.
Past that, we have involuntary lockup now, typically for 72 hours. It doesn't stand out in the arsenal of tools that get misused by LEO.
