You either didn’t read or didn’t understand the article. He’s quite clear on the fact that deinstitutionalization of the mentally contributed to the rising homicide rate of the 60’s, 70’ and 80’s and that the rising imprisonment movement of the 90’s decreased the murder rate.
Because the mentally ill are now in prisons instead of mental institutions.
It doesn’t solve the rampage killer problem however if a mentally ill person’s first contact with mental health or law enforcement is after the rampage as is often the case now that it is practically impossible to get mental health care or hospitalization for your unfriendly neighborhood psychotic until they kill somebody.
His first paragraph, quoted below is totally false.
Mass murder is NOT on the rise at all.
His opening pp.:
“For those of us who came of age in the 1970s, one of the most shocking aspects of the last three decades was the rise of mass public shootings: people who went into public places and murdered complete strangers. Such crimes had taken place before, such as the Texas Tower murders by Charles Whitman in 1966,1 but their rarity meant that they were shocking.”
So I repeat: His basic premise on which his article is based is totally false.