I couldn't believe this headline when I read it in The Times today. But the story is true. I wonder if it is another case of an obsession with 'rights' clouding and warping the judgement of those responsible for administering policy


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1625041,00.html

You make it sound like it was deliberate policy instead of an oversight by The Department of Health and Human Services.

So much for stiffer penalties :roll:

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
You make it sound like it was deliberate policy instead of an oversight by The Department of Health and Human Services.

I never said it was a deliberate policy by the DHHS - i.e. by the policymakers. It seems though to be a case of a gross failure of judgment by those responsible for implementing the policy. Did not those directly responsible for administering these pills ever consider the absurdity of what they were doing? At the ground level, policy has to be interpreted by those responsible for implementing it. What tends to happen is that the implementers follow guidelines. In this case I suspect the guidelines have to do with entitlements, hence my point about 'rights'. It seems to be a classic case of bureaupathology - i.e. of obsession with rules overriding common sense and judgement. We saw a similar thing in this country recently, when a particularly bureaucratic interpetation (or misinterpretation of) the Data Protection Act contributed to the Soham tragedy. Policymakers though are responsible for shaping the mindsets of bureaucrats and other policy implementers, so they cannot and should not be absolved of responsibility for the errors of their underlings.

Originally posted by LordChaverly
I never said it was a deliberate policy by the DHHS - i.e. by the policymakers. It seems though to be a case of a gross failure of judgment by those responsible for implementing the policy. Did not those directly responsible for administering these pills ever consider the absurdity of what they were doing?

I read this and I think that the article tries to make it appear that the pills were given out, even when the sex offender's status was known. As far as I can tell, though, it was simply an oversight that the sex offenders list was not checked before hand outs to people on that list. Don't forget that the sex offenders register and that particular medical health service are totally unrelated; it would require a conscious decision by the medical service to check the list against their patient records.

Basically, it wasn't a case of going to a sex offenders institute and handing out viagra, it was an honest and simple mistake.

The "Forum on Prisoner Education" now wants to give them free and unrestricted web and email:

http://www.theregister.com/2005/05/24/lag_internet_jail/

Originally posted by spiffymonkey
I read this and I think that the article tries to make it appear that the pills were given out, even when the sex offender's status was known. As far as I can tell, though, it was simply an oversight that the sex offenders list was not checked before hand outs to people on that list. Don't forget that the sex offenders register and that particular medical health service are totally unrelated; it would require a conscious decision by the medical service to check the list against their patient records.

Basically, it wasn't a case of going to a sex offenders institute and handing out viagra, it was an honest and simple mistake.

and this has little or nothing to do with prisoners as the title of the thread would suggest. It sounds like these were people who had served their sentence and were released although still on the register.

Originally posted by Cyclone
and this has little or nothing to do with prisoners as the title of the thread would suggest. It sounds like these were people who had served their sentence and were released although still on the register.

In one sense you are quite right - its should have said ex-prisoners or prisoners on parole. But this only exacerbates the absurdity of the situation - giving Viagra to convicted sex offenders on the loose is surely asking for trouble. References by a previous poster to this as an 'oversight' is a semantic smokescreen or euphemism for a glaring error of judgement which, as I said in my previous post, could have systemic causes.

Originally posted by LordChaverly
In one sense you are quite right - its should have said ex-prisoners or prisoners on parole. But this only exacerbates the absurdity of the situation - giving Viagra to convicted sex offenders on the loose is surely asking for trouble. References by a previous poster to this as an 'oversight' is a semantic smokescreen or euphemism for a glaring error of judgement which, as I said in my previous post, could have systemic causes.

it sounds to me like a case of a lack of communication between services.
convicted sex offender goes to his gp (or equivalent in the states) and presents a problem with his little chap, doctor prescribes viagra, cost is claimed back as sex offender has no job or income.
Maybe the doctors should have received guidance that before prescribing viagra to anyone they should consult the sex offenders register...

Originally posted by Don_Kiddick
So much for stiffer penalties :roll: they certainly are doing hard time ,but thats the good ol us of a. for you

Originally posted by LordChaverly
References by a previous poster to this as an 'oversight' is a semantic smokescreen or euphemism for a glaring error of judgement which, as I said in my previous post, could have systemic causes.

Not an error in judgment - a lack of judgement. In other words, it's not that they knew the guy they gave them to was a sex offender and decided that it would be OK. They just didn't know. An error in judgement requires a concious judgement to have taken place. If they simply didn't know then how could they have judged one way or another? It was an oversight by the medical concern involved not to limit access to the viagra, but I very much doubt they thought "give them to sex offenders? yeah, what harm can it do..."

MOD: Changed title to something closer to reality.

Cyclone

'it sounds to me like a case of a lack of communication between services'.

Ah, now where have we heard this phrase before? Just about in every published inquiry into child abuse and the failure of the public services in the last twenty years. Communication failures on this scale don't just happen - they are products of systemic failures of one kind or another, even though specific individuals are usually made to carry the can. These systemic failures, or bureaupathologies, can take many forms. In this case I suspect its due to contradictions in policy, in this case between the rights of individuals who are poor or elderly to receive subsidised health care through Medicaid and society's right to protection from potentially dangerous individuals i.e. to a failure to reconcile and prioritise conflicting policies, or even to recognise them until pointed out (years later may I add).

Spiffymonkey

‘Not an error in judgment - a lack of judgement’.

Even disregarding the fact that the terms 'error of judgement' and 'lack of judgement' are often used synonymously to mean a culpable weakness in judgement of some kind, I think there is a fundamental flaw in your reasoning. Errors of judgement can occur if rules are applied too rigidly, or applied blindly, without taking into account individual circumstances. Since this practice has been going on for at least four years (and probably not just in New York and Florida) and involves literally hundreds of 'patients', and probably thousands of interactions between doctor and patient, and that it was only discovered by accident as a result of a financial audit, it beggars belief that there was no failure of judgement somewhere on the part of those administering this peculiar form of health care. Did those administering it not have any access to any of the medical records or histories of these 'patients'? Did they not ask any questions which might at some point set alarm bells ringing? Evidently not, as no whistleblower has been discovered. It obviously points to a failure of monitoring, but also to failures in the interpretation and implementation of the 1998 federal directive from which this particular Medicaid policy ultimately derives - more than an oversight, methinks..

Originally posted by depoix
they certainly are doing hard time ,but thats the good ol us of a. for you
I think it's just to stop them rolling out of bed. You know how narrow those prison bunks are. :D