Editing Involuntary commitment (section)

=== Wrongful involuntary commitment ===
{{Main|Political abuse of psychiatry}}
{{See also|Rosenhan experiment}}
There are instances in which mental health professionals have wrongfully deemed individuals to have been displaying the symptoms of a [[mental disorder]], and committed the individual for treatment in a [[psychiatric hospital]] upon such grounds. Claims of wrongful commitment are a common theme in the [[Anti-psychiatry|anti-psychiatry movement]].<ref>{{cite news|date=February 2, 2009|title=UNC study: Mental illness by itself does not predict future violent behavior|publisher=UNC Health Care|url=http://www.unchealthcare.org/site/newsroom/news/2009/January/elbogen/|url-status=dead|access-date=July 2, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090414194347/http://www.unchealthcare.org/site/newsroom/news/2009/January/elbogen/|archive-date=April 14, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Desai|first=Nimesh G.|date=2005|title=Antipsychiatry: Meeting the challenge|journal=Indian Journal of Psychiatry|volume=47|issue=4|pages=185–187|doi=10.4103/0019-5545.43048|issn=0019-5545|pmc=2921130|pmid=20711302 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="nasral">{{cite web|author=Henry A. Nasrallah|date=December 2011|title=The antipsychiatry movement: Who and why|url=http://www.currentpsychiatry.com/fileadmin/cp_archive/pdf/1012/1012CP_Editorial.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150207004541/http://www.currentpsychiatry.com/fileadmin/cp_archive/pdf/1012/1012CP_Editorial.pdf|archive-date=2015-02-07|access-date=2013-08-14|website=Current Psychiatry}}</ref>

In 1860, the case of [[Elizabeth Packard]], who was wrongfully committed that year and filed a lawsuit and won thereafter, highlighted the issue of wrongful involuntary commitment.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Testa|first1=Megan|last2=West|first2=Sara G.|date=October 2010|title=Civil Commitment in the United States|journal=Psychiatry (Edgmont)|volume=7|issue=10|pages=30–40|issn=1550-5952|pmc=3392176|pmid=22778709}}</ref> In 1887, investigative journalist [[Nellie Bly]] went undercover at an asylum in [[New York City]] to expose the terrible conditions that mental patients at the time had to deal with. She published her findings and experiences as articles in ''[[New York World]]'', and later made the articles into one book called ''[[Ten Days in a Mad-House]]''.

In the first half of the twentieth century there were a few high-profile cases of wrongful commitment based on racism or punishment for [[political dissent]]ers. In the former [[Soviet Union]], [[Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union|psychiatric hospitals were used as prisons]] to isolate [[political prisoner]]s from the rest of society. British playwright [[Tom Stoppard]] wrote ''[[Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (play)|Every Good Boy Deserves Favour]]'' about the relationship between a patient and his doctor in one of these hospitals. Stoppard was inspired by a meeting with a Russian exile.<ref>{{cite book |last=Caute |first=David | year = 2005 | title = The dancer defects: The struggle for cultural supremacy during the Cold War | publisher = Oxford University Press |location=Oxford | page = 359 | isbn = 978-0-19-927883-1 |oclc=434472173 }}</ref> In 1927, after the execution of [[Sacco and Vanzetti]] in the United States, demonstrator [[Aurora D'Angelo]] was sent to a mental health facility for psychiatric evaluation after she participated in a rally in support of the anarchists.<ref>{{cite book|last=Moshik|first=Temkin|author-link=Moshik Temkin|url=https://archive.org/details/saccovanzettiaff0000temk/page/316|title=The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair|publisher=Yale University Press Publishers|year=2009|isbn=978-0-300-12484-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/saccovanzettiaff0000temk/page/316 316]}}</ref>{{Pages needed|date=July 2020}} Throughout the 1940s and 1950s in [[Canada]], 20,000 Canadian children, called the [[Duplessis Orphans|Duplessis orphans]], were wrongfully certified as being mentally ill and as a result were committed to psychiatric institutions where they were allegedly forced to take psychiatric medication that they did not need and were abused. They were named after [[Maurice Duplessis]], the [[premier]] of [[Quebec]] at the time, who deliberately committed these children to misappropriate additional [[Subsidy|subsidies]] from the federal government.<ref>{{cite web|date=Jun 18, 2004|title=Duplessis orphans seek proof of medical experiments|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/duplessis-orphans-seek-proof-of-medical-experiments-1.487094|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180128185759/http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/duplessis-orphans-seek-proof-of-medical-experiments-1.487094|archive-date=January 28, 2018|website=[[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]]}}</ref> Decades later in the 1990s, several of the orphans sued Quebec and the [[Catholic Church]] for the abuse and wrongdoing.<ref>{{cite news|last=Farnsworth|first=Clyde H.|date=1993-05-21|title=Orphans of the 1950s, Telling of Abuse, Sue Quebec|language=en-US|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/21/world/orphans-of-the-1950-s-telling-of-abuse-sue-quebec.html|url-status=live|access-date=2020-07-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181123121947/https://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/21/world/orphans-of-the-1950-s-telling-of-abuse-sue-quebec.html|archive-date=November 23, 2018|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> In 1958, black pastor and activist [[Clennon Washington King Jr.]] tried enrolling at the [[University of Mississippi]], which at the time was white, for summer classes; the local police secretly arrested and involuntarily committed him to a mental hospital for 12 days.<ref>{{cite book|last=Tucker|first=William H.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C-jIEhfKPaYC|title=The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0-252-02762-8|page=119|access-date=July 14, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200506164702/https://books.google.com/books?id=C-jIEhfKPaYC|archive-date=May 6, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Negro Pastor Pronounced Sane">[https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1798&dat=19580620&id=LgIdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4YoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7178,1936782 "Negro Pastor Pronounced Sane; Demands Mississippi Apologize".] UPI. ''[[Sarasota Journal]]'' 20 June 1958: 3.</ref>

Patients are able to sue if they believe that they have been wrongfully committed.<ref>{{cite web|date=2010-08-11|title=Detaining patients against wishes carries legal risks - amednews.com|url=https://amednews.com/article/20101108/profession/311089941/5/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180829074638/http://www.amednews.com/article/20101108/profession/311089941/5/|archive-date=August 29, 2018|access-date=2020-07-13|website=[[American Medical News]]|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Orlando|first=James|date=Jan 24, 2013|title=Involuntary Civil Commitment and Patients' Rights|url=https://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/rpt/2013-R-0041.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150320002558/http://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/rpt/2013-R-0041.htm|archive-date=March 20, 2015|website=[[Connecticut General Assembly]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Can an involuntary commitment be false imprisonment if it is not malpractice?: Thompson O'neil Law|url=http://www.thompsononeillaw.com/our-blog/wrongful-termination-and-discrimination/can-an-involuntary-commitment-be-false-imprisonment-if-it-is-not-malpractice.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191220003942/http://www.thompsononeillaw.com/our-blog/wrongful-termination-and-discrimination/can-an-involuntary-commitment-be-false-imprisonment-if-it-is-not-malpractice.html|archive-date=December 20, 2019|access-date=2020-07-13|website=Thompson & O'Neil Law}}</ref> In one instance, Junius Wilson, an African American man, was committed to Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, North Carolina in 1925 for an alleged crime without a trial or conviction. He was castrated. He continued to be held at Cherry Hospital for the next 67 years of his life. It turned out he was deaf rather than mentally ill.<ref>{{cite web |last=Swofford |first=Stan|date=Jan 30, 1993|title=Locked up and castrated for a crime he wasn't convicted of |url=https://greensboro.com/townnews/law/locked-up-and-castrated-for-a-crime-he-wasnt-convicted-of-a-deaf-man-spends/article_cbd24d8c-6765-5ec1-a8a9-cf2ea955b98f.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Wright |first=Gary |date=June 24, 1993|title=Now 95, deaf man was castrated, locked up for decades|url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-06-24-1993175006-story.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |website=AP News|date=Nov 10, 1992|title=Deaf Man To Be Released After 67 Years In Psychiatric Hospital|url=https://apnews.com/article/f2437200e764f6de97836b0ea2c5f560}}</ref>

In many U.S. states,<ref>{{cite web|last=Hamilton-Smith|first=Guy|date=2018-11-16|title=The Endless Punishment of Civil Commitment |url=https://ajustfuture.org/the-endless-punishment-of-civil-commitment-2/ |access-date=2020-11-18|website=Just Future Project|language=en-US}}</ref> sex offenders who have completed a period of incarceration can be civilly committed to a mental institution based on a finding of dangerousness due to a mental disorder.<ref>{{cite web|last=Signorelli|first=Nina|date=2020-07-09|title=A Backdoor Around Double Jeopardy|url=https://ajustfuture.org/a-backdoor-around-double-jeopardy/|access-date=2020-11-18|website=Just Future Project|language=en-US}}</ref> Although the United States Supreme Court determined that this practice does not constitute [[double jeopardy]],<ref>{{cite court|litigants=Kansas v. Hendricks|vol=521|reporter=U.S. |opinion=346|pinpoint=361 |court= |date=1997|url=https://cite.case.law/us/521/346/|access-date=20 November 2020|quote=The thrust of Hendricks' argument is that the Act establishes criminal proceedings; hence confinement under it necessarily constitutes punishment. He contends that where, as here, newly enacted 'punishment' is predicated upon past conduct for which he has already been convicted and forced to serve a prison sentence, the Constitution's Double Jeopardy and ''Ex Post Facto'' Clauses are violated. We are unpersuaded by Hendricks' argument that Kansas has established criminal proceedings.}}</ref> organizations such as the [[American Psychiatric Association]] (APA) strongly oppose the practice.<ref>{{cite web|date=2019-11-08|title=APA Opposes Civil Commitment of Sex Offenders After Prison|url=https://ajustfuture.org/apa-opposes-civil-commitment-of-sex-offenders-after-prison/|access-date=2020-11-18|website=Just Future Project |language=en-US}}</ref> The Task Force on Sexually Dangerous Offenders, a component of APA's Council on Psychiatry and Law, reported that "in the opinion of the task force, sexual predator commitment laws represent a serious assault on the integrity of psychiatry, particularly with regard to defining mental illness and the clinical conditions for compulsory treatment. Moreover, by bending civil commitment to serve essentially non-medical purposes, statutes threaten to undermine the legitimacy of the medical model of commitment."<ref>{{Bluebook website|title=Dangerous Sex Offenders: A Task Force Report of the American Psychiatric Association|publisher=American Psychiatric Association|url=https://www.appi.org/Dangerous_Sex_Offenders |pin=173 |date=1999}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Assessing the Real Risk of Sexually Violent Predators: Doctor Padilla's Dangerous Data, Tamara Rice Lave and Franklin E. Zimring, 2018 |url=https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/publications/assessing-real-risk-sexually-violent-predators-doctor-padillas-dangerous-data-tamara-rice-lave-and-franklin-e-zimring-2018/|access-date=2020-12-03|website=Prison Legal News}}</ref>