A liberal friend was one of those leading the charge to close the asylums. I’m convinced she was wrong.
Back in the day, before they were closed a lot of them had gotten very bad. No over site or enforcing some kind of regulations had turned them into hell holes.
A lot of them were very old, warn down and the staff that worked there? The staff were all Mildred Ratched on acid.
I can understand your friends concern and wanting to shut them down. What I can’t understand is why they threw out the baby with the bathwater and didn’t try to improve the situation.
Then again there was no internet back then. When not if abuse happened in those places there was really not much in getting the word out and making change. Now there are sites like Reddit and expose everything. If something would happen people would raise hell and the lawsuits would fly.