Quarantine of the Mind

Quarantine of the Mind is an account of the tribulations of a person deemed mentally ill and dangerous by the courts, and "imprisoned" thereby for an indeterminate time (19 years and counting) in order to protect society from him. It is a diatribe against the system of "preventative imprisonment for crimes not yet committed," and the torturous activities that are often used at institutions, out of the light of public scrutiny, to manifest "obedience training for adult humans." The volume includes numerous historical references to the development of modern mental health medicine; describes competing approaches to restorative mental health and approaches to combating chemical dependency, and their overlaps; rails against inadequacies of the judicial system in its failure to protect the rights of the mentally ill accused; and advocates for dramatic expansion of more humane approaches to the treatment of individuals living with mental illness. A decidedly non-academic text, it is a personal perspective of a son of a physician, who worked at world famous Mayo Clinic, who despite developing symptoms of schizophrenia at a young age, went on to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps for two years before being overwhelmed by his condition. His incarceration at the Minnesota State Security Hospital was ordered in the aftermath of his stabbing a young woman in the leg in 1993 -- she was a member of a small drug distribution gang -- in a delusional expectation of being able to bring police scrutiny down upon that gang through the visibility of his act.