Spoken like someone who has never been in one. They’re completely different places. It’s incredibly difficult to hold someone more than a day or two in an institutionalized setting. Even SCOTUS has ruled it violates your rights (Olmstead 1999). You pretty much get to a judge within a few days of an involuntary commitment (assuming it’s the weekend, less if it isn’t) and then again within a week or two. Long term holds are insanely rare.
I’ve been in them only to visit, but I’ve heard descriptions from staff (friends) and patients (former clients of mine) and it’s nothing like the 70s. The industry went through massive reforms, partially in response to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but insiders had been pushing since even before that in some cases.