[USNBandit]

I wonder what meds he was on. I had a friend whose shrink put her on an anti-anxiety drug for a prolonged period, mostly in an effort to get her into bed. When she tried to get off it she had all sorts of departures from reality. Periods of blackouts, an unscheduled trip to the Mexican border in the middle of the night in the middle of one of these delusional episodes. She had to go inpatient to get off the medicine.

Really scary. The cure was much worse than her original problems.

[Pearls Before Swine]

That’s one aspect of psychiatry that isn’t well understood—the psychotic potential of anti-psychotics.

What I’m saying, is that psychiatrists who recommend criminal release are like banks playing with taxpayer money. They have no skin in the game. For example, if a jail shrink recommends release of a Level 3 sex offender because he seems rehabilitated, it’s on the public next time he goes off. There’s no downside to the psychiatrist. In fact, he might be marked on how many patients he “cures.”

It’s a tougher issue with people who are free and might be loony. It’s more difficult (and should be, to prevent political abuses) to commit them because they MIGHT go off. But cons are proven bad actors.