There’s nothing contradictory with compulsory psychiatry, providing housing, and ending the war on drugs. The US’ hardcore line on drugs has clearly been an abject failure and its time to reverse the damage we’ve done before its too late.
Back in the 1970s, there was a movie I watched, starring Alan Arkin, called The Other Side of Hell[0].
It was modeled on The Patuxent Institution[1], which has known some controversy[2].
There's a story (I think the movie references it), where someone was admitted for thirty days, for losing their shit at a traffic stop, and ended up doing thirty years.
It's a Real Bad Place. I met someone that did nine years, there, but he earned it.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078043/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patuxent_Institution
[2] https://www.petition2congress.com/ctas/citizens-against-crue...
That's why it's controversial. Housing First is controversial because it, too, will be corrupted if there's no additional action, and will mostly become the housing component of a UBI, likely with significantly higher costs as some people will not be able to function in the provided housing, damage it, and at the same time have the right to an undamaged home.
Putting people behind bars is less controversial on the right, spending the budget on social causes for eternity is less controversial on the left.
At some point along that path, it seems reasonable for a society to say “okay, your next home is one that you cannot damage with lots of sturdy metal and concrete furnishings”.
Why can't we just build sturdy housing that's difficult to damage?
But "jails without locked doors" would be a good middle ground. Provide security like a jail, but the "inmates" are free to come and go.
Why might that be needed? If someone is an anti-social asshole who chronically destroys public housing, they will need some level of supervision (even if it's just to prevent them pouring concrete powder into the drains of an otherwise indestructible building, because the society who says everyone has a right to housing probably won't let that mean "without functioning plumbing").
1. build normal housing
2. build "blast-proof" housing
3. build "inmate-proof" housing
The last is commonly called a jail; but then you have guards and other support staff - you can have the support staff without having it be an actual jail. They can be there to prevent fights/monitor health/etc, and you could have varying amounts.
The promise to the Judge was, you do a month of psych ward, get some counseling, and get out. "Sweet!" he said, "Better than doing a year in the can for stealing". His psychiatrist branded him a sociopath and put him on some pills that he, a liar, didn't need. They changed him for the worse, a sane man entered the asylum and day after day he was turning into a raving lunatic. "I'm not crazy!", he said - but that was only more fuel for the doctors, as it was clearly something a crazy man would say to get out. The attitude around here was that if you yelled, you got more pills, maybe a beating by an angry male nurse too. If you stay quiet, you don't get out. "I don't need any of this! I was pretending! Please let me out!" he cried.
The nurses held him back and tossed him back into a padded room. As they dragged him, he kicked and screamed that he was not crazy and didn't need help, but it was all pointless. His psychiatrist later told Jon that the alternative was worse, that he was a liar, a pretender, and someone that willingly gets in here for any reason clearly belongs in the bobby hatch.
He would never get out again. Jon met him on his 18th year in the tin, he clearly wasn't right in the head when they talked, the pills, electroshock sessions and pointless talks with the Psychiatrist every week had clearly sapped this man of any energy he might have once had. He was a ghost of a man now, hunched, old and weak. What a punishment for stealing a can of beans.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYemnKEKx0c
Don't yell at me if I don't get the details right, I doubt it matters if he stole a can of beans or a bottle of whisky.
We already have court-ordered private drug and alcohol recovery programs (offered as an alternative to jail time) renting out their patients as unpaid labor to, eg, chicken processing plants and offering no actual treatment.
Sounds like an ugly place, but I doubt there's too many places like it. Addicts in early Recovery are not an especially reliable workforce. I think that SynAnon was like that, in the early days.
The problem with addicts, is that society hates them, so it's fairly easy to do what you want with them.
Also, a lot of rehabs and detoxes are run by addicts, and many of them have not progressed too far in Recovery, themselves.
- Community service
- Fines
- Curfews
- Binding-over
- Suspended sentences
Those are the alternatives that leap to mind; i'm sure there are many more choices for sentencing magistrates.
Or maybe they comply with the court's orders, because they don't want more severe sanctions? Fact is, some states seem to manage without throwing people in the can as soon as possible; some states use incarceration as a last resort.
[Sorry, upthread person; I wasn't trained on US constitution. As far as I'm concerned, jail, prison, penitentiary, reform school are all the same as incarceration. At least for the purposes of this discussion.]