Mental Health Institutions and Disability Rights

 

A recent article in Newsweek by Steven Taylor of Syracuse University’s excellent disability studies program highlights the experiences of conscientious objectors during world war II–the “C.O.s” were often housed in mental health facilities and they reported on the squalid conditions they encountered. Taylor’s piece points out the coincidental and aligning features of today’s mental health conditions at many of our nation’s medieval facilities. This excerpt and link are from Inclusion Daily Express:

Steven J. Taylor: Conscientious Objectors Of WWII
(Newsweek)
May 29, 2009
SYRACUSE, NEW YORK– [Excerpt] “Mental Hospitals Are Again Under Fire” read an editorial describing critiques of state institutions for people with psychiatric, developmental, and other disabilities. It was published in a leading mental health journal in 1946. It was written in response to a long series of exposés of state institutions across the country. The editorial acknowledged that the psychiatric establishment had tolerated squalid conditions and brutality at the nation’s institutions for too long. The exposés had been brought about through the efforts of young conscientious objectors (COs) during what is widely regarded as America’s “good war.”

The editorial could have been written yesterday. On May 17, a group of self-described mental health clients and psychiatric survivors staged a rally at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in San Francisco protesting medical coercion and forced treatment. Ninety-nine disability rights activists were arrested at a Capitol Hill protest on April 28 urging passage of federal legislation guaranteeing the right to receive services in the community rather than nursing homes and other institutions. Groups around the country have endorsed the right to community living for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Today’s struggles give us a chance to recall the heroic works of the conscientious objectors of World War II. About 12,000 men performed civilian public service as an alternative to serving in the military during that war. Initially, they labored at forest, park, and soil conservation camps located in remote areas. Eventually, the Selective Service approved the establishment of “detached” units at which COs served as human guinea pigs in medical experiments, worked on public health projects in the rural south, and performed other forms of service. Approximately 3,000 men were assigned to work at mental hospitals and training schools that faced severe labor shortages during the war.

Entire article:
Conscientious Objectors of WWII
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/2009/red/0529d.htm

Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University View all posts by stevekuusisto