**A long, drawn out version - my own op-ed - is currently in submission to a publication and will not be released on here if it is accepted, but rather linked.**
To the Editor
To the Editor
I
am writing in concern about the recent op-ed, “The Modern Asylum.”
It must be noted that institutions do not provide an adequate
response to the needs of individuals with disabilities.
Institutionalization
is not cost-efficient, as statistics provided by Disability Rights
Washington show; “investing in a robust home and community based
system is an efficient use of limited resources, because it will free
up money that is currently being used to maintain institutions.”1
Studies
and reports have shown that patients respond better to outside
placement, including ones from the Division of Developmental
Disabilities Services State of Delaware and the University of
Minnesota.2 It
is vital that disabled people be given a chance to create their own
initiatives outside of institutions.
It
is unwise to to insist deinstitutionalization has failed, because it
has never been undertaken effectively; states are still funding
institutions, though on a smaller scale, and not contributing enough
money to properly intregrate people despite proven benefits.3 It
cannot be implied that institutions worked and write that “modern
asylums” need to return. It is better to shift fully to community
integration, the resources for which have not been fully implemented;
institutions are neither cost-efficient, nor beneficial to the people
locked within their walls. In institutional settings, rates of abuse
within current systems still run rampant.4
Total
asylums and institutions are a horrifying specter from the past, and
cannot return.
Sincerely,
Kit
Mead
Disability
Advocate
2 Conroy,
J., Garrow, J. (2003). Initial outcomes of community placement for
the people who moved from Stockley Center (Delaware).
Kim,
S., Larson, S.A., and Larkin, K.C. (1999). Behavioral outcomes of
deinstitutionalization for people with intellectual
disabilities: A review of studies conducted between 1980 and 1999.
Policy Research Brief (University of
Minnesota,
Institute on Community Integration), 10(1)
4 Maureen
Crossmaker, “Behind
Locked Doors – Institutional Sexual Abuse,” Sexuality
and Disability 9,
no 3,
(1991) 201-219
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