And note, people blame Reagan for closing mental health institution causing this problem when the fact of the matter is the ACLU sued claiming that no one who is mentally ill and is not a violent threat can be detained against their will in a mental health facility. Because they won this suit, most of the ill left these facilities leaving them virtually vacant and ripe for closing. Not Reagan’s fault and certainly not a directive from him.
Besides, Obama or Clinton could have opened them back.
Amen to that; I have countered the libs’ “Reagan closed the mental hospitals” argument with those same facts for many years. People so easily forget the ACLU’s constant whining about “warehousing the mentally ill.”
True that. AND, at the last meeting of the areas mental healthcare orgs, my wife, who works at one, said that the estimate is that there are about 3 million of these people who have homicidal trends.
So all it takes is something to push them over the edge and they go out and kill-they want attention and will do anything to get it, no matter what kind, as long as its attention.
Here is a fact. The Giffords shooters family had called the local police several times and they did nothing but talk to him. The FL school shooter had been reported to the authorities several times and they did nothing. The LAW SAYS, that these people can be taken in for a 72 hour mental evaluation. AND THEY DID NOTHING.
When the photo came up of the Giffords shooter my wife in and instant said that he was paranoid (grand delusions) with homicidal trends. He was smiling because he got attention and in his mind he was famous and proud of it.
I thought the shuttering of asylums started well before Reagan.
There is absolutely nothing humane about leaving those people who are genuinely mentally ill to fend for themselves on the streets. As always, the ACLU has it completely, totally wrong.
No question, a lot of institutions were snake pits, but reforms could have been instituted.
bump
It also was about that time that vagrancy laws were done away with. formerly free museums started to charge a fee just to keep the bums out, and public Libraries suddenly became the “IN” place for a drunk to sleep of his load.
One library I used to go to had to close off a floor due to BEDBUGS.