Mental health workers on Wednesday urged the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to scrap plans to establish special facilities to confine mental patients who have committed serious crimes, arguing the facilities would reinforce prejudices.
Following the June killing of eight children at an Ikeda elementary school by a knife-wielding man with a history of mental illness, the government has been considering legislative measures to establish special facilities and empower judicial authorities to decide on whether mental patients with criminal records should be confined.
After meeting with health ministry officials, Makiko Kato, head of a private Tokyo institution for the mentally ill, argued that the proposal is based on the assumption that all mental patients are potential criminals.
Instead, Kato called on the ministry to improve standards of medical and welfare services for mental patients and eradicate public prejudice against them.