Quote:
Originally Posted by sidestepper
Seems like Great Britain's civil rights for those with mental health issues, even what may end up being a temporary problem, needs some work. All health issues, mental, police involvement or no should be confidential.
I know some lawyers in this field, I now have questions that I'll be asking at our next advocacy meeting. Thanks for bring this up, I had no idea this was even possible. I have been seconded, involuntarily committed still worked in my field-health care, have been on jury duty-too many times to count, but I'm in USA and have never given any broad based consent to search on anything, only time limited and very specific, limited ones.
Where those things happed to me was in a very blue state that takes civil liberties very seriously. I could be wrong but I think police involvement and crime connections could be a state by state rule. I've never had problems traveling, but I have had no MI section involvements since 2001. The world and civil liberties have changed since that date.
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I actually agree with you. Technically, mental health discrimination is actually illegal in the UK (Disability Discrimination Act 1995 etc) but when enhanced CRB checks were introduced back in 2002 they've effectively brought in backdoor discrimination which very few people know about. On an enhanced CRB check it gives space for the local police Chief Inspector to disclose any information (criminal or non-criminal, mental health, known drug addictions, past investigations which concluded with no charges etc) held on you if he/she feels it's relevant for the job you're applying for. It's completely arbitrary (although I heard some forces like the London Metropolitan Police do it routinely), and there's currently no straight forward way to contest information and it doesn't have an expiration date or anything like that, it also doesn't require the consent of a qualified professional like a psychiatrist to say if it's relevant or not. I had a discussion with an ex cop about this, he said that because the police are just writing "facts" and not actual judgements on your mental health state, it's completely legal.
Anyone from the UK who is interested in the topic re: mental health / CRB should read this blog, someone did attempt to make an issue out of it, I think she actually managed to successfully contest the information so they altered it accordingly.
http://www.alastaircampbell.org/blog...in-crb-checks/
As for the US and other countries, I'm not sure, but I read somewhere that arrest records are sometimes disclosable to employers under some circumstances in some US states, and mental health act-style detentions are classed as arrests.
(I find this topic very interesting lol)