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State Hospital vs. Jail

Which is better for a young man with a major mental illness?

Patsy Fergusson
Fourth Wave
7 min readDec 21, 2024

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Photo licensed from Adobe Stock

At least he’s not in chains
One of the worst days of my life was visiting him in jail and having three officers bring a feral iteration of him to the visitors’ booth in handcuffs and ankle chains connected together. I couldn’t touch him through the fury or the plexiglass.

His clothing looks comfortable
He was wearing a soft brown sweatshirt and tee shirt and drawstring pants. Not the blaring orange jumpsuit from jail. Not the padded dark blue dress with velcro fasteners from the special unit.

There was no barrier between us
We sat at a round table in a gym-sized roomful of round tables occupied by other families. We hugged hello and goodbye. One benign looking guard stood far away from us, by the door. I couldn’t tell if he carried a gun.

There were peacocks!
I forgot to ask if he’d seen the peacocks — whether and how often they let him go outside. When his dad and I arrived, there was a big peacock strutting through the parking lot. Three more plump ones sat on the railing in a little courtyard (enclosed by chain link and razor wire) that we passed through on our way inside. The “sally port,” the guard called it.

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Patsy Fergusson
Patsy Fergusson

Written by Patsy Fergusson

Tree hugger. Tour guide. Top Writer. Feminist. Newly-baptized Bay swimmer. Editor of Fourth Wave. https://medium.com/fourth-wave

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