State Power Over Involuntary Commitment

State Power over Involuntary Commitment
Name:
Institution
State Power over Involuntary Commitment
Involuntary commitment of ill persons by the government poses a conflict between a person’s civil rights of freedom of choice and the government’s interest in security. Involuntary treatment of these persons also presents the danger of risking the life of the patient. Statistics show that out of the one million patients who are civilly committed, about a third of these, who number to 300,000, are involuntary cases. These patients have neither the control over choices of their medication nor the duration of their treatment before discharge (Comer, 2014). The parent or guardian to the patient is not sought for consent in any stages of the civil commitment and treatment and the patients are in full control by the government with decisions made through the courts. Involuntary commitment is rendered to patients who the government perceives a threat to themselves and to the community. According to The Group for Advancement of Psychiatrists, involuntary commitment infringes on the values of pertanalism and autonomy.
The two justifications that the government uses to warrant civil commitment include police powers and Parens Patriae. For police powers, the conditions are that police have the power bestowed to them by the society to contain any individual who is deemed dangerous or cannot assert self control, for the protection of the society at large. Parens Patriae includes the responsibility of the society itself to look out for its incapacitated members to ensure they cause no harm to themselves or others (American Psychological Association, 2013). In the early 1800s, the mentally ill were confined in jails or in deplorable conditions and were mixed with the physically challenged as they were portrayed as outsiders of the social norm. However, it was not until mid 19th century that the mentally ill were recognized and catered for humanely. Families were given the liberty to enroll their sick child for civil commitment and considerable coercion was used if the parents did not conform when the child’s situation was dire.
However, over the period, with change in political and social climate and an upsurge in crime and social unrest, law enforcers have been involved in forcefully taking the ill to hospital without their consent. Their numbers then surpass those of prisoners behind bars before the dis-institutionalization of mentally ill institutions in the 1960s. The impact of involuntary treatment has been observed in certain care centers where antipsychotic medication has been indecently used by hospital staff to consciously disable them so they can be docile and controllable without considering the potent side effects (Comer, 2014). According to the American constitution, the Eighth Amendment, the act secures a person’s freedom to refuse coercion and chastisement with a patient’s rights guaranteed in the...