The result of shuttering our insane asylums. Crazed nutters muttering to themselves on our city streets.
That was Mario Cuomo, who closed all the state psychiatric centers, and pushed them all out into the community. I was working as a Correctional Officer at the time, and the prison system ended up with a whole new bunch of nuts. When I started as a hack at Auburn prison in 1980, we used to have to hand out psychotropic drugs/anti-depressants while we were taking the count every afternoon. The union finally filed a grievance over it, because we weren't qualified medical personnel to do it...and it was finally stopped. Some officers had to use a cart to roll the drugs down the gallery to hand out. It was usually all in liquid form, that you had to give out via eyedroppers. It was a crazy time. After that, the inmates had to be put on daily medical call-outs to go to the facility infirmary, and have their medication dispensed by a nurse.