Individual assignment FiA 2.3
Care or control for persons with confused behavior?
, Introduction of the case and first response
Recently, there is much talk about confused behavior in the media and the number of
incidents involving ‘confused people’ are increasing (Koekkoek, 2017). Almost every day it is
reported that another confused person has been spotted, arrested, or hospitalized (De Balie,
2020). People who demonstrate confused behavior are often thought to have mental problems,
because their behavior is ‘divergent’ and therefore, society aims to control these persons. But
what exactly is normal behavior and when does behavior diverge from normal? In my opinion
it is almost impossible to determine whether someone’s behavior is normal or divergent
because there are no objective criteria for ‘normal’ behavior. My next question is: ‘What is
causing the increase in incidents with confused people?’ I believe that, because of the absence
of objective criteria, society forms its own ideas about normal and divergent behavior, but
perhaps its expectations of normal behavior have become too high, resulting in having more
people be, maybe falsely, classified as ‘divergent’. However, incorrectly classifying someone
as divergent, could have a big social impact, since classifications have an infrastructural
character and influence our perception of our environment (Bowker & Star, 1999).
Furthermore, as noted earlier, the focus on confused people in the media is increasing, but
what I noticed is that the media mostly shows serious incidents, like murder (NOS, 2019). By
only showing these, I am concerned that society will associate all confused people with such
incidents and crime. However, Andringa & De Vries (2022) state that the classic image of the
psychotic man attacking people on the street is far less common than thought. What society
calls ‘confused persons’ is a group of people with problems of varying nature, duration and
severity and different backgrounds (Koekkoek, 2017), so because of these great differences
between confused individuals, it does not mean that all confused persons will commit crime.
Because of those differences, I believe that each case should be treated individually and that
we should try to sort out underlying causes and problems of someone’s confused behavior.
Koekkoek (2023) introduced the term ‘misunderstood behavior’ as an alternative for confused
behavior. By looking individually at each case and sorting the underlying causes and
problems out, I think you can turn misunderstood behavior into understood behavior.
Overall, the above leads to the following ethical question: ‘What is the boundary between
normal and confused behavior and how should we deal with confused behavior?’
(Word count: 400)
Justice perspective
