According to Brown University Medical School psychiatrist Dr. Christine Montross: "Police officers, sometimes in an attempt to provide mentally ill people with treatment, have said things to me: 'We know if we take them to jail, they will at least get three hots and a cot. They will at least get their psychiatric medications.' And so taking them to jail feels like an act of compassion."
"So this idea of a 'compassionate arrest' struck me so deeply, because we would never do something like that for someone to make sure that he or she received their treatment for diabetes. We would never arrest someone to make sure that they received treatment for cancer. We only do that in this situation of the mentally ill, and that, to me, seems like a travesty."
"When you are in the prison system, the expectations are very clear. You're given a set of rules; you're meant to follow those rules. If you don't follow the rules, there are consequences, and the consequences result in greater punishment, greater control. When a person with mental illness enters into that system, there is a misalignment between the straightforward system and their ability to comply with that system. So if someone is not thinking clearly, if they're feeling extremely paranoid, they are not going to trust the rules that are being told to them or the people who are enforcing those rules."
In David Davies, "Psychiatrist: America's Extremely Punitive Prisons Make Mental Illness Worse," NPR, July 16, 2020
"So this idea of a 'compassionate arrest' struck me so deeply, because we would never do something like that for someone to make sure that he or she received their treatment for diabetes. We would never arrest someone to make sure that they received treatment for cancer. We only do that in this situation of the mentally ill, and that, to me, seems like a travesty."
"When you are in the prison system, the expectations are very clear. You're given a set of rules; you're meant to follow those rules. If you don't follow the rules, there are consequences, and the consequences result in greater punishment, greater control. When a person with mental illness enters into that system, there is a misalignment between the straightforward system and their ability to comply with that system. So if someone is not thinking clearly, if they're feeling extremely paranoid, they are not going to trust the rules that are being told to them or the people who are enforcing those rules."
In David Davies, "Psychiatrist: America's Extremely Punitive Prisons Make Mental Illness Worse," NPR, July 16, 2020
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