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Community Systems Collide and Cooperate: Control of Deviance by the Legal and Mental Health Systems

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Handbook of the Sociology of Health, Illness, and Healing

Part of the book series: Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research ((HSSR))

Abstract

For most of history, society controlled mentally disordered behavior informally; but with ­modernization it developed formal organizational controls for the behavior it recognized as mentally disordered. This chapter examines relatively recent formal attempts by two systems, the legal and mental health systems, to define and execute control over persons with mental illness whose behavior violates societal norms. It begins with a brief history of the posture of the legal and mental health systems toward mentally disordered persons prior to the mid-twentieth century. It then describes the collision which occurred following civil rights reforms which made the legal system the arbiter of the mental health system’s decisions in treatment and hospitalization, especially involuntary treatment and hospitalization. It describes societal forces beyond the two systems which brought about conditions leading to their cooperation. It then examines the new cooperation that is beginning to occur, giving some detail to one promising program of cooperation. Finally, it discusses directions for future inquiry by researchers who study the two systems’ efforts in controlling deviance of persons with mental illness.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A 2006 report, using an unreasonably expansive definition, raised the estimate to over half of those incarcerated in jails and prisons (James and Glaze 2006).

  2. 2.

    The legal system had established forensic mental health units to deal with competency evaluations, competency treatment, not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity (NGRI) treatment, and treatment for prisoners whose mental illness was recognized after incarceration (Steadman and Monahan 1982); but these units did not constitute diversion programs. Additionally, courts sometimes ordered treatment as a condition of probation and parole; but formal programs in the community were few (see Bloom et al. 1986 for an exception) and, as stated earlier, mental health practitioners avoided treating mentally ill offenders.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, North Carolina State University, Rm. 355, 1911 Building, Raleigh, NC, 27695-8107, USA

    Virginia Aldigé Hiday

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  1. Virginia Aldigé Hiday
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Correspondence to Virginia Aldigé Hiday .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Social Research, Indiana University, E. Third Street 1022, Bloomington, 47405, Indiana, USA

    Bernice A. Pescosolido

  2. Institute of Social Research, Indiana University, E. Third Street 1022, Bloomington, 47405, Indiana, USA

    Jack K. Martin

  3. Institute of Social Research, Indiana University, E. Third Street 1022, Bloomington, 47405, Indiana, USA

    Jane D. McLeod

  4. , National Primary Care Research and Devel, The University of Manchester, Oxford Street, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom

    Anne Rogers

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Hiday, V.A. (2011). Community Systems Collide and Cooperate: Control of Deviance by the Legal and Mental Health Systems. In: Pescosolido, B., Martin, J., McLeod, J., Rogers, A. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Health, Illness, and Healing. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7261-3_9

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