My problem is how they are thrusted on anyone who admits to having suicidal thoughts. Yes, no one is ""forced"" to call it yet the social pressure is there, nowadays you are told if you are suicidal or feeling down, "call a hotline!", and people will take that at face value without understanding the dangers behind it. Many people are ignorant to the true nature of these hotlines and not aware that police could be called on them and that they could be forced into a psychiatric establishment, many people have had their lives worsened when they were already feeling like shit from traumatic encounters with the police/psych wards and losing their jobs or going into medical debt from the hospitals as a result. (I am talking specifically about the US, but similar things can apply in other countries.) And that's all without going into the shady data-selling practices and related things.
The Samaritans are a step in the right direction from what I've heard, they do not call the authorities in any cirumstance, though I am not familiar with them to know if they provide any access to resources beyond that. In any case, there is not really a widely accessible similar service in the US.
Ideally a "suicide hotline" would work to connect you to resources and things that would specifically help you in your situation, connecting someone to actual free or affordable therapists in their area, if you are suffering from abuse, help someone find a shelter to stay at, poverty, connect someone to job resources, etc, rather than calling the cops on someone or telling them to take a walk and do some yoga. And that's provided the individual asks for resources/help, they should always have the right to refuse.
If all they are going to be is a place for someone to talk about their feelings for free over the phone without actually doing anything for you then they should be advertised as such.
Yeah, they're worse than useless, particularly in the U.S. where a 911 call sends armed cops to your house alongside the fire department and the EMT's. U.S. cops shoot and kill a LOT of mentally ill people, as well as their dogs, their relatives, and their neighbors. So much so that "suicide by cop" is a recognized thing. If you want the high probability of death that a gunshot wound to the chest provides, but find it distasteful or impractical to shoot yourself, then suicide by cop may be an economical and convenient way to get your ticket punched. The "iF eVeN oNe LiFe iS sAvEd" rhetoric doesn't really fly here, because a hell of a lot more than one life has been lost to idiot hotline volunteers who thought they were "helping."
Really, hotlines exist to make neurotypical people feel better. They get to feel satisfied that "something is being done" about the fact that so many are living intolerable lives, but nothing really is. It's a form of security theater, much like making everyone take off their shoes in airports. One guy 20 years ago managed to smuggle a bit of C4 into an airport by putting it in his shoe, and we are still doing that silly-ass shoe removal thing to this day.
Agree 100%.