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"The history of serious mental illness (SMI) is grim, from a cultural as well as a treatment perspective. The conditions of individuals with psychotic disorders have swung, like a pendulum, from institutional neglect to community neglect and back again over the past several hundred years. At the core of treatment failure is a failure in mental health policy and funding, with the result usually framed as the degree of human institutionalization in jails, prisons and asylums. In the middle of the 19th century, institutions designed to deliver moral treatment were considered the humane answer to care properly for the SMI population. By the mid- 20th century, those same, now overcrowded, institutions were blamed for the horrible conditions of mistreatment of individuals with SMI. Now, as we approach the middle of the 21st century, deinstitutionalization (the answer to the cruel asylums) is purportedly at fault for homelessness, lack of treatment, and criminalization. As the pendulum swings, we are hearing cries to "bring back" the asylums"

Forensic Psychiatry --- Commitment of Mentally Ill --- Criminal Law --- Institutionalization --- Psychotic Disorders --- Insanity Defense