Actually a bookmark for later...but I have a question.
What did Carter do? I know that in the 80’s they closed institutions and turned out the mentally ill on the streets. Was that under Carter?
Actually that happened back in the late 60s. Here in CA it was under Gov. Reagan. However it was a result of the Federal courts ruling that it was unconstitutional to involuntarily commit the mentally ill unless they were convicted of a crime, or a specific threat to themselves or others.
"The final report of the commission to President Carter contained the recommendations upon which the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980 was based....
By the start of the Carter administration in 1977, involuntary commitment had been restricted to those who were deemed as potentially dangerous to themselves or, perhaps more significantly, those around them.2 Typically, the commitment had to be sponsored by a family member and/or ordered by the court.
A result of this policy was that the mentally ill patient who refused treatment typically did not receive any at all. If the patient had lost contact with family members, she or he would not be committed unless found to be a threat by the court. Often, those arrested ended up in jail rather than in treatment if they had not been found to be a threat but had committed a crime (Abramson, 1972; Conrad and Schneider, 1980). On e result was a high degree of stress and frustration experienced by the relatives of the patient. Throughout the 1970s, family members organized with the purpose of correcting a policy that they perceived was wrong."
http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html