Question by Native American ?: My professor called me a “liberal sweetheart.” What did she mean?
It was in one of my psychology courses. I was discussing how I believe there should be more “psychologists” employed in prisons/mental hospitals because I feel that 2 “psychiatrists” monitoring 200 inmates/patients is not enough since each inmate/patient is not getting enough individual attention and treatment. I expressed how we are sending “mentally ill” criminals through a revolving door by having our tax dollars go to medicate them enough to be “coherent” during trial, but then when the judge realizes that they’re still incoherent, they’re sent back to receive more drugs…etc. (and the process never ends) Therefore, taxpayers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on medication/treatment, transportation, shelter, trials…etc. Why not spend the money on trained professionals who will offer more than drugs to rehabilitate…?

I don’t see how I am being liberal? I don’t know whether to take it as a compliment or insult.
I must disagree. I’ve been around the top floors of prisons where the “mentally ill” are confined, and I must say that being isolated in a room, with the food slot being the only light, no blanket or clothing is very much punishment. It’s amazing that the majority of the people who serve their time, and then get out – return to the same exact position. To me, “punishment” doesn’t seem to be working for the hundreds of “mentally ill inmates” in the top floors of prisons.

Best answer:

Answer by rickinnocal
First, of course, being called a liberal is *always* an insult – and a nasty one.

Second, the problem is not needing more psychiatrists in prisons, it is getting rid of the idea that crime is a mental health issue to begin with.

Yes, a significant percentage of criminals are mentally ill, but the liberal perception that crime is primarily “caused” by mental illness is asinine. The vast majority of people who commit crimes do so not because they are mentally ill, but because they are bad people.

They do not need “counseling” or “help” or “rehabilitation”. They need to be punished, and punished severely enough that when they next consider committing a crime, they simply decide that the risk/reward ratio does not justify continuing.

This would, in addition, free up the prison psychiatrists to spend more time with those inmates who really ‘are’ mentally ill. The problem is, of course, that like ALL government jobs, nothing ever becomes ‘less necessary”. If you DID put more psychiatrists into prisons, they would start “diagnosing” more and more patients as mentally ill, and they would thus decide that even more psychiatrists were needed.

The urge to “empire build” is as irresistable in government employees as the urge to build a nest is to a sparrow in the spring.

Richard

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