Institutionalization necessarily involves imprisonment, but should not be limited to just that, I don't know why you are considering this to be some rhetorical flourish. I am not misrepresenting anyone, nor am I playing word games. Homeless people are often experiencing chronic, severe mental health issues and should be put into a psych ward that helps them regain control of their lives. They will not do this on their own, so this is where the rest of society comes in, say "yes we do actually know better than you," and take them off the street.
> Homeless people are often experiencing chronic, severe mental health issues and should be put into a psych ward that helps them regain control of their lives.
Can't you see you are denying agency to a whole population because they live in a way you don't agree with? And keep them like that until they do?
I know homelessness takes a huge toll on mental health, but to incarcerate homeless people until they are "cured" without focusing on the causes for the mental health problems some experience is just that: taking them off the streets to somewhere people aren't forced to acknowledge they exist.
Yes, these people are so mentally ill (and potentially drug addicted) that the state needs to supersede their agency so that they can rejoin society. I have no issue with this morally because I know beyond the shadow of doubt that if they can rejoin society they will experience a far better quality of life than they could ever hope for homeless. I explicitly acknowledge they exist, that is why I want them to be helped.
The man that lives under a bridge on the walking path near my house, who alternates between screaming for hours on end and being in a fentanyl trance, is not making logical decisions and would be better served by a psych ward and addiction treatment.
> Yes, these people are so mentally ill (and potentially drug addicted)
Please, stop. You didn't say depriving the seriously mentally ill and the terminally drug addicted of agency. You said it about homeless people, justifying with a plausible, but not confirmed, argument that they are mentally ill, drug addicted, or both.
I too want the mentally ill and drug addicts to be helped, and even conced that, in those cases, it might need to be necessary to treat them against their will, but to just incarcerate (because good psychiatric care is expensive, and the US, it seems, can't even afford universal healthcare on par with the average European country) them even though they have not been convicted of any crimes.
