Arkam Asylum does more harm than good?

[frostedone]

In the comics Arkam Asylum seems to be a rather inhuman place to "rehabilitate" the inmates.

In the Arkam Asylum: A Serious Place on a Serious Earth, and Living Hell, and in the issue where Batman goes there as an inmates (can't remember which one, Maybe the Last Arkam?) Arkam seemed to offer nothing useful to rehabilitate the inmates. The staff was cruel, Dr. Arkam as cruel/or nuts too. It seemed like half of the time the doctors ran it like a maximum security prison, but other times it seems like the inmates take over it and kill off a bunch of the staff. Half of the staff seems just as corrupted as the inmates too.

It seems like if someone insane goes in, by the time they leave, they are even more messed up than before, so after repeatedly going in and out...

But other issues show Arkam as more of a mental hospital with helpful staff. Which is the real one?

I liked the Batman: The Animated series version the best. The staff was not corrupt and they were actually nice to the people there. The even cured Arnold Wesker!

[AlistairCrane]

I think the "real one" is a combination of the two: a mixture of corrupt people along with those who want to make a difference.

[OverMaster]

Even Dr. Arkham is sometimes portrayed as uncaring and cold, sometimes as compassive and passionate about his inmates (he let them all go in Road to No Man's Land because otherwise they'd all die starving once the government cut all his funds and supports off. He was even crying about it).

[Vidocq]

This might come as a surprise but Asylum's for the criminal insane rarely concern them selves with rehabilitation and many times are more of a dumping ground for untreatbly insane Criminals like Psychopaths (Not sociopaths, their is a difference), Sexual Saddists etc. When someone's able to be rehabilitated is usually send to a Normal Psychiatric Asylums.

[Nefarius]

I don't know about this but certainly the security of this place sucks(considering how easy all those criminals escape).

[phantom1592]

I never liked the IDEA of Arkham. MOST of the people batman fights probably aren't insane. At least in the "commitable" sense. I get the feeling that since they showed up screaming about a giant bat they were thrown in the asylum. The fact that they were RIGHT was swept under the rug.:wink:

[Alan2099]

I remmeber reading a story where an innoncent man got locked up in Arkham. By the time they found out he wasn't really insane, he had already been driven to madness and killed quite a few people.

[Gamiel]

I remmeber reading a story where an innoncent man got locked up in Arkham. By the time they found out he wasn't really insane, he had already been driven to madness and killed quite a few people.

If the sane man was Warren White a.k.a. Great White Shark than everybody know he wasn't insane because he tried to escape prison by pleading insanity, the judge found it quite funny.

[Alan2099]

No. It was a guy that from day one was claiming he wasn't insane and didn't belong there. Everyone pretty much just gave him the "that's what they all say" treatment. After some time (I forget if it was days, weeks, or whatever) some officers rushed back because they'd found evidence that he was actually completley innoncent. Of course when they went to get him, they'd found that he'd been pushed too far and snapped, having killed quite a few other inmates.