I agree with that conclusion as well.
During the research I mentioned above I went on a tangent (as often happens when I start researching!)about mental institutions of our past. I did learn a lot about the various views our society has had about mental illness and how we dealt with it- it’s always been a very touchy subject and has eluded any solution. Today we medicate enormous numbers of our people who may well have been locked up in the past. Is that a good or bad thing? I don’t know.
The point though- that we haven’t really paid attention to our sick people- is a valid one. I mean I never wondered about it either until the last few years. Suddenly, while reading about the THOUSANDS of people who used to be “put away” I wondered...what the hell happened to them? I found we let them out and then just dealt with the circumstances and consequences as they come up. Since the 70’s we’ve kind of ignored them except when they act out.
Like everything else now- we are so divided I can’t imagine a cohesive, caring and sensible policy toward people like Alan Lanza.
I believe that the truth is that the former inmates did not all have any one fate. Some were taken in and cared for by family, some became wards of the criminal justice system, and a large number met any one of a number of grisly (often at the hands of other former inmates) and/or sad ends. Improved pharmacology has meant that more than in the 1950s, can live a more or less normal life as long as they take their meds. So while closing the asylums was not an unmitigated good, neither would reopening them.