Breaking News: Forced psychiatry begins to implode
Dear Friends,
The bombshell has dropped:
Forensics to be abolished
Below the short version of the publication by the DGSP (German association for social psychiatry, who defended psychiatry in the Foucault Tribunal, see the video), here as pdf the long version in German, which you may translate via Deepl.
We are already jumping for joy, because as Thomas Szasz rightly said in 1998 in the indictment of the Foucault Tribunal: https://www.foucault.de/indictment.htm
Civil commitment and the insanity defense are like Siamese twins. Kill one, and both will be dead. That is why it is hopeless to try to abolish civil commitment without coming to grips with the implications of the insanity defense, and vice versa. Civil commitment and the insanity defense both authenticate as “real” the socially useful fictions of mental illness and psychiatric expertise. Both create and confirm the illusion that we are coping wisely and well with vexing social problems, when in fact we are obfuscating and aggravating them. Alas, psychiatric power thus corrupts not only the psychiatrists who wield it and the patients who are subjected to it, but the community that supports it as well.
So this is really a reason to rejoice and we can proudly say that our constant criticism seems to be having an effect – the pillars of coercive psychiatry are not only eroding, they are beginning to crumble 🙂
The law university lecturer, Dr. Kammeier, one of the authors, has changed sides with the DGSP. He has become a member of the Cartel against § 63!
A short history in German of this here: https://www.forensik.de/fileadmin/user_files/forensik/Florenz/Kammeier_Florenz-Vortrag_2018-06-21__1_.pdf
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Authors Feißt/Lewe/Kammeier + DGSP (German association for social psychiatry)
Plea for a transformation of the educative punishment
– Abstract –
First:
Sections 63, 64 and 20, 21 Criminal Code are deleted.
In the past, there have been manifold efforts to reform the respective execution of the two forms of educative punishment (the psychiatric one according to § 63 Criminal Code and the withdrawal measure according to § 64 Criminal Code). These projects have failed. Based on sociological, empirical and legal policy findings, the DGSP has now come to the conclusion that it must decide advocating abolishing them altogether.
This necessitates a lasting change in the law on sanctions with its two tracks, punishment and educative punishment. The educative punishment of Sections 63 and 64 will be deleted from the Criminal Code.
In the future, all offenders will be sentenced to a penalty, provided that the elements of the offense are fulfilled. Insufficiencies of culpability, as well as aspects of dangerousness and need for correction, will no longer play a role. Therefore, §§ 20 and 21 of the Criminal Code are also to be deleted. Insofar as a custodial sentence is pronounced, it is limited in time for all. At the latest on the last day of the term of imprisonment, the prisoner is released.
In the case of persons persistently deemed to be highly dangerous, the possibility of ordering preventive detention for them shall be retained.
Second:
Health care for persons deprived of their liberty shall be provided by local physicians and services.
Health care for all persons in custodial (penal) detention in the future will no longer be the responsibility, organization and financing of the judiciary. This care will be provided by doctors and other health services and facilities at the place of the correctional facility. This applies to both somatic and psychosocial care.
This makes health care for persons deprived of their liberty structurally identical to the care provided to persons in nursing homes and homes for the elderly.
Third:
All persons deprived of their liberty will be included in the social insurance system.
This transformation of the responsibility for health care and fiscal financing from the realm of the judiciary into the system of care under the Social Security Codes makes it necessary for all persons sentenced to deprivation of liberty (punishment) to be included in the statutory health insurance and in the pension insurance.
If they cannot make the required contributions themselves, the state (the prison administration) must do so.
Persons in custody are entitled to benefits like all other insured persons. This entitlement to benefits continues beyond the end of the deprivation of liberty. This ensures a continuity that did not previously exist.
At the same time, it eliminates an existing discrimination.
Fourth:
Facilities of the educative punishment can become those of criminal punishment.
What can be done with the existing facilities of the educative punishment? They cannot simply be abandoned and torn down. In a conversion step, they can become correctional facilities. It is true that the places previously required for the correctional system will no longer be available. On the other hand, it is likely that a number of additional places will be needed for the penal system in the future.
Fifth:
Previous employees of the educative punishment can transfer to the criminal punishment – or become employees in the health and social services at the place of execution.
The staff of the educative punishment does not have to worry about losing their jobs. They can transfer to another employer as part of the conversion process: Employees will either transfer to correctional services as employees, – or they will become employees in health services at the criminal punishment facility sites. They are needed in both areas. Here they can do their work virtually from a different, an outpatient perspective and organizational form, responsible for the continuing need for health and social psychiatric care.
Sixth:
In the future, the sovereign state alone will be responsible for securing the convicted and protecting the general public.
Psychiatry will be relieved of sovereign tasks and duties of protection.
This means that psychiatry and mental health services can concentrate entirely and exclusively on their functions of providing help and support. They are relieved of the task of imposing sanctions. Expert activities are no longer required and no longer interfere with therapeutic services.