Deinstitutionalization Movement

Deinstitutionalization is a term often applied to reflect the widespread strategy and activity of reducing the occupancy of psychiatric [Page 451]hospitals and sites of institutionalization. With its focus on community integration of the psychiatric patient, processes of deinstitutionalization have been widespread across many countries and jurisdictions such as North America, Canada, Australia, and European countries such as the United Kingdom. This aspect of health and social policy has been the subject of much critical debate since the mid-20th century, where in the United States and elsewhere, the process of closing the doors on large-scale houses of confinement for the psychiatric subject first became realized. As Gronfein posits, deinstitutionalization has two goals: (1) to depopulate institutions for the mentally ill and (2) to develop community care ...