Today, American mental health law and policy promote the restoring of "law and order" in the community rather than protecting civil liberties for the individual. This compelling book recounts how and why mental health law is being reshaped to safeguard society rather than mentally ill citizens. The authors, both experts in the field, convincingly demonstrate how rapidly changing American values ignited two very different visions of justice for the mentally ill. They argue that during the "Liberal era"-- from 1960 to 1980-- Americans staunchly supported civil liberties for all, particularly for disadvantaged citizens like the mentally ill. Also, criminal law provided ample opportunities for mentally ill offenders to avoid criminal punishment for their crimes, and restrictive civil commitment laws made it difficult to hospitalize the mentally disabled against their will. During the "Neoconservative era"--from 1980 on-- however, the public demanded new laws as a result of the rise in crime and the increasing number of homeless in communities. These changes make it much more difficult for mentally ill offenders to escape criminal blame and far easier to put disturbed citizens into hospitals against their will. Back to the Asylum accurately describes how this abrupt shift in from protecting individual rights to protecting the community has had a major impact on the mentally ill. It examines these legal changes in their broader social context and offers a provocative analysis of these law reforms. Finally, this timely work forecasts the future of mental health law and policy as America enters the twenty-first century.

"This dramatic memoir recaptures William Seabrook's experiences during an eight-month stay at a Westchester mental hospital in the early 1930s. Seabrook, who was a renowned journalist, voluntarily committed himself for acute alcoholism. His account offers an honest, self-critical look at addiction and treatment in the days before Alcoholics Anonymous and other modern programs. William Seabrook is most famous for introducing the word Zombie to Western culture"--

Madeleine Roux's New York Times bestselling Asylum is a thrilling and creepy photo-illustrated novel that Publishers Weekly called "a strong YA debut that reveals the enduring impact of buried trauma on a place." For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, the New Hampshire College Prep program is the chance of a lifetime. Except that when Dan arrives, he finds that the usual summer housing has been closed, forcing students to stay in the crumbling Brookline Dorm. The dorm was formerly a sanatorium, more commonly known as an asylum. And not just any asylum—a last resort for the criminally insane. As Dan and his new friends Abby and Jordan start exploring Brookline's twisty halls and hidden basement, they uncover disturbing secrets about what really went on at Brookline . . . secrets that link Dan and his friends to the asylum's dark past. Because Brookline was no ordinary asylum, and there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried. Featuring found photographs from real asylums and filled with chilling mystery and page-turning suspense, Asylum is a horror story that treads the line between genius and insanity, perfect for fans of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Don't miss any of the books in the Asylum series, or Madeleine Roux's shivery fantasy series, House of Furies!

treatment of asylum Seekers : Tenth report of session 2006-07, Vol. 2: Oral and written Evidence

During the Civil War, a plantation owner's wife is arrested by her husband and declared insane for seeking justice for slaves. She is sent to a mental asylum and finds love with a war-haunted Confederate soldier.

'An eerily familiar reflection of our current moment ... It continues to haunt me' NATASHA BROWN, I PAPER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 'I will go wherever she takes me. A phenomenal book' DAISY JOHNSON 'A brilliant, scalding novel ... sharp, intricately layered, impossible to forget' MEGAN HUNTER 'Stunning ... beautifully written and deeply unsettling' BOOKSELLER, EDITOR'S CHOICE CHOSEN AS A 2021 BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR BY OBSERVER, INDEPENDENT, FINANCIAL TIMES, EVENING STANDARD, GRAZIA, STYLIST, ELLE THE NATIONAL, FIVE BOOKS AND BURO A couple drive from London to coastal Provence. Anya is preoccupied with what she feels is a relationship on the verge; unequal, precarious. Luke, reserved, stoic, gives away nothing. As the sun sets one evening, he proposes, and they return to London engaged. But planning a wedding does little to settle Anya's unease. As a child, she escaped from Sarajevo, and the idea of security is as alien now as it was then. When social convention forces Anya to return, she begins to change. The past she sought to contain for as long as she can remember resurfaces, and the hot summer builds to a startling climax. Lean, sly and unsettling, Asylum Road is about the many borders governing our lives: between men and women, assimilation and otherness, nations, families, order and chaos. What happens, and who do we become, when they break down?

When four women are found brutally murdered and shockingly posed on park benches throughout the city over several months, Martine's boss fears a PR disaster for the still busy tourist season, and Martine is now also tasked with acting as liaison between the mayor and the police department. Martine is paired with a young detective, Julian Fletcher, and together they dig deep into the city's and the country's past, only to uncover a dark secret dating back to the 1950s, when orphanages in Montreal and elsewhere were converted to asylums in order to gain more funding. The children were subjected to horrific experiments such as lobotomies, electroshock therapy, and psychotropic medication, and many of them died in the process. The survivors were supposedly compensated for their trauma by the government and the cases seem to have been settled. So who is bearing a grudge now, and why did these four women have to die? Print run 20,000.