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Paternalism, Civil Commitment And Illness Politics: Assessing The Current Debate And Outlining A Future Direction, Bruce A. Arrigo

Journal of Law and Health

The purpose of this article is to examine critically the role that both law and psychiatry have played in casting mentally ill persons as deviants, citizen / outsiders caught in a crossfire of illness politics. This examination will focus on those values protected and privileged by the medical and legal professions as reflected in confinement law and policy primarily during the last quarter of the twentieth century. The social, economic and political power these disciplines exercise in the lives of psychiatric citizens raises significant questions concerning the future of involuntary civil commitment both from a clinical and justice policy perspective. …