Drzava

What are the guidelines for being placed in one? Is it possible someone could be sentenced to jail for a crime and then transferred to an insane asylum if they were indeed crazy? What is standard procedure for this?

FoggyImagination

The guidelines for being admitted to a mental hospital are generally simple. If you are deemed a threat to yourself or others for a reason out of your immediate control. There's a lot more to the processes and what happens after the initial admission. I know this is kind of an old post, but if you're looking for more help try checking out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_hospital

there is also a section on this site that talks about the criminal insane and using mental institutions as prisons.

Good Luck...
and if you have any specific questions about the inside workings in this type of a facility, especially pertaining to adolscents and pre-ads, I might be able to help.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." Dr. Seuss

Kimba

I'm not sure about the mental hospitals in the States, but the mental hopsitals in Australia are all about respect for the patient.

The inital assement would see how much of a threat you are to yourself and others. If you're deemed too much of a threat to others and yourself, you'd most likely be placed under specialist nursing care [one-on-one] for 24 hours.

Most mental hospitals here have single rooms and depending on how serious your mental illness is, you may be left to your own devices at certain times of the day.

We also have what we call day leave and weekend leave. These are categorised according to how much your mental health improves [if at all]. Usually, when patients return from either of these leaves, they are security checked and body searched to make sure they haven't come back with something that could re-endanger their own life [ie tea tree oil which is poisonous if ingested].

Usually, the poilcy of the hospitals here are quite understanding to the patients needs. Hope it helps you ....

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Kimba
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