[Impala64ssa]

It started in 1972 when a then unknown Geraldo Rivera did an expose on the horrible conditions in the NYC mental institutions. He did the right thing but instead of fixing the problems the hospitals closed and in the name of RIGHTS of the mentally ill, the patients were put out in the streets. A problem we’re still doing with. Thank the ACLU for this.

[hinckley buzzard]

Not even close. The “deinstitutionalization” movement had been going on for years but it started in earnest in Alabama in 1970 when the state, in a cost cutting move, laid off several hundred state hospital employees including doctors and social workers. Conditions were basically custodial and there was no treatment going on.

The employees brought suit and Federal court found that if the state involuntarily confined someone not for a crime but for illness, that person had a constitutional right to treatment that would or could be reasonably expected to result in some improvement and eventual discharge.. The costs of changes laid out by the court to achieve compliance were prohibitive to the state; so they simply discharged hordes of patients into the street.

The case is known as Wyatt v Stickney 1971 and is a landmark decision that wound its way through the appellate system for the next 30 years.

The decision is correct. You can’t just deprive an innocent but sick person of his rights simply for the convenience of the state.