70
Why are mental health patients strip searched in mental hospitals here in the USA?
(self.nostupidquestions)
this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
70 points (94.9% liked)
No Stupid Questions
36294 readers
1532 users here now
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Maybe so the staff can make sure nobody brings in any objects that can harm oneself or others?
I figured they could invest in a body scanner
They don't take in hundreds of people per day. They might not even average one person per day. There's no way it would be worth the $150-200K it would cost.
Unfortunately, our mental health institutions don't receive as much funding as they deserve. One out of every five adults in the US is living with a mental illness (source). I know I would be really pissed off if someone strip-searched me and forced me to shower.
Yeah exactly. If they're going to imprison ppl, at least don't be stingy about it
Spent some time in a similar situation earlier this year in Aus. Wasn't strip searched but they check everything you bring in, turn out your pockets and confiscated phone charging cables, shoe laces, belts and drawstrings from pants. Also not allowed to take bags onto the ward.
It's a safety measure for everyone's sake: staff, patients and visitors. Its not necessarily that you would be a danger to others, as other patients stealing something and doing something dangerous.
Don't know about the US but there is no way the hospitals over here are buying body scanners with their shoestring budgets.
because mental health institutions are prisons
It's to make sure you don't have any weapons or drugs on your person. In theory, if everyone you worked with was deemed by a judge to be a danger to themselves or others, you might be interested in making sure the people that are by definition deemed dangerous aren't armed before you try to give them medication or restrain them.
I mean to be fair if you were involuntarily hospitalized, you actually were a prisoner.
Shouldn't have been since I didn't get charged with a crime
I agree, but what else would you call being forced into a facility you can't leave? Especially if the pigs brought you there. The way people in crisis are handled in this country is appalling.
I have been in several mental health crises that I should have been in involuntarily hospitalized for, but was too afraid to ask for help because I would rather die than lose what little freedom I have. So I might be biased (and very bitter).
Because there's a phenomeon where people that have power over you tend to abuse that power.
Exhibit A: Stanford Prison Experiment
I don't doubt that there are lessons to learn from the SPE, but it's also worth noting that it's been widely criticized for various biases and influences and lack of controls, and that no other researchers have ever been able to replicate its findings. Some might call it debunked, others perhaps not, but I think it's fair to say it isn't generally accepted as gospel.