You know, you made it sound like you want all schizophrenics and other mentally ill people locked away "for everyone's good" whether they want so or not and apparently no matter whether they pose a threat to anyone. That DOES sound pretty fucked up. Mental illnesses are an extremely controversial topic and presenting things this way is awfully ignorant.

I am truly sorry if I made it sound that way - it ways in no way my meaning. English not being my native language and me writing stuff up way too late may not be the best combination. Hopefully i didnt insult anyone too badly by accident.

Well, I can actually tell a little bit how things were and are in Finland - I am not expert, but I happen to have some personal knowlege:

We bought the apartment where we living now a year ago and it happens to be in the same house where my grandparents used to live (both now long deceased). My grandmother used to work nearby in a, well i dont know what youd call it - kind of small institute where all these people with any kind of mental problems or physical handicaps could come, spend time together, do some small handwork (woodworks, sewing and so on).

-> In effect they where kept as a part of society: they were not alone, the staff made sure they had the little medicine what existed at the time, they ate regularly and if needed the staff would send them to see doctor for whatever reason. From what ive understood of my grandparents, everyone thought this was great system and it was free for those people who needed to use it.

The at somepoint "the saving" and making things more "efficient" started - i couldnt tell you the exact year I am afraid as I was just kid. But anyhow, the system was run down. It was decided that this is not a good way to use money and the system was run down: The ill people were send to their own homes with the medicines and told "There you go and have a happy life". Those with whatever deemed to be more difficult cases, were send to closed institutes and locked away from society so to speak.

I am personally very much against this. Its not good for anyone and in the end it doesnt save money either.

These days its kind of mixed bag. Ive understood that its very much possible to have care for mental problems, but that many have it too late. Ofcourse the situation changes from city to city, but atleast in bigger cities you need to wait quite sometime, from weeks to some months, before you can actually go to speak with psychiatrist for the first time.

Anyway when talking about mental health problems, theres one thing what I am very much worried about: At times people may face difficult situations which may be too much for themselves and they would need acute counseling right away - which they dont get because of -lack of money-. Relatively recent example:

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Yet+another+family+killing+Helsinki+police+confident+they+have+a+motive+for+Fridays+triple+murder+in+Bulevardi+home/1329103809001

-> Later it was told, that this person had requested help for himself the day earlier, but did not get it because "He wasnt yet a regular customer" or whatever. You could say bureocray killed the family in the end.

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The kind of mentally illness I was refering to in the original post were something like this:

http://www.hs.fi/english/print/1076152535020

Now this is old news and its not like this kind of thing happens every day - but its just the extreme example why there should be efficient and free caring system for those in need. An open system like in my grandmothers time, that tries to help these people and yet does not lock the away from the society.

Hopefully i made more sense this time, but now I have to hurry to work already ->