Usuário(a):Emanoelq/Lei da Deficiência Mental 1913

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A Lei da Deficiência Mental de 1913 foi uma lei promulgada pelo Parlamento do Reino Unido que instituiu o tratamento de pessoas consideradas "débeis mentais" e "deficientes morais" em instituições. "A lei propôs uma separação institucional de modo que os deficientes mentais pudessem ser retirados de instituições sob a Lei de Poor e de prisões e internados em colônias recém estabelecidas."

Antecedentes

A Lei dos Idiotas de 1886 tornou legal a distinção entre "idiota" e "imbecil" na legislação britânica. Ela continha orientações de cunho educacional ao atendimento das necessidades das pessoas enquadradas nessas categorias. Em 1904 a Comissão Real para Cuidado e Controle dos Débeis-Mentais (Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded) foi criada com a missão de "considerar os métodos existentes no trato com idiotas, epilépticos, imbecis, débeis mentais ou pessoas defeituosas não certificadas conforme as Leis dos Lunáticos (Lunacy Laws)...para relatar e propor emendas à lei ou outras medidas que devam ser adotadas em relação à matéria". A comissão produziu um relatório extenso em 1908 que estimava em 149.628 o número de pessoas consideradas "defeituosas mentais", equivalente a 0,46% da população de 32.527.843 habitantes no Reino Unido na época. Ela recomendou o estabelecimento de uma junta de controle que supervisionasse as autoridades locais nos esforços voltados ao "bem estar dos mentalmente defeituosos".

Winston Churchill spoke of the need to introduce compulsory labour camps for "mental defectives" in the House of Commons in February 1911. In May 1912 a Private Members' Bill entitled the "Feeble-Minded Control Bill" was introduced in the House of Commons, which called for the implementation of the Royal Commission's conclusions. It rejected sterilisation of the "feeble-minded", but had provision for registration and segregation. One of the few voices raised against the bill was that of G.K. Chesterton who ridiculed the bill, calling it the "Feeble-Minded Bill, both for brevity and because the description is strictly accurate". The bill was withdrawn, but a government bill introduced on 10 June 1912 replaced it, which would become the Mental Deficiency Act 1913.

The Mental Deficiency Act

The bill was passed in 1913 with only three MPs voting against it. One of them was Josiah Wedgwood, who said of it, "It is a spirit of the Horrible Eugenic Society which is setting out to breed up the working class as though they were cattle." The new act repealed the Idiots Act 1886 and followed the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded. It established the Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency to oversee the implementation of provisions for the care and management of four classes of people,

a) Idiots. Those so deeply defective as to be unable to guard themselves against common physical dangers.

b) Imbeciles. Whose defectiveness does not amount to idiocy, but is so pronounced that they are incapable of managing themselves or their affairs, or, in the case of children, of being taught to do so.

c) Feeble-minded persons. Whose weakness does not amount to imbecility, yet who require care, supervision, or control, for their protection or for the protection of others, or, in the case of children, are incapable of receiving benefit from the instruction in ordinary schools.

d) Moral Imbeciles. Displaying mental weakness coupled with strong vicious or criminal propensities, and on whom punishment has little or no deterrent effect.

A person deemed to be an idiot or imbecile might be placed in an institution or under guardianship if the parent or guardian so petitioned, as could a person of any of the four categories under 21 years, as could a person of any category who had been abandoned, neglected, guilty of a crime, in a state institution, habitually drunk, or unable to be schooled.

At the height of operation of the Mental Deficiency Act, 65,000 people were placed in "colonies" or in other institutional settings. The act remained in effect until it was repealed by the Mental Health Act 1959.

External links

• UK Mental Deficiency Act, 1913 An audio file perspective on the Act by Lee Humber of Oxford Brookes University.