[Jim Noble]

Here's a LINK to a surprisingly good NY Times article published in 1984 (never could get ink today) with some honest history about the end of State Mental Hospitals.

[GOP_Party_Animal]

Interesting. Like most people, I know little about the closing of mental institutions and consequences felt today. I thought this summed things up well:

...heavy responsibility lay on a sometimes neglected aspect of the problem: the overreliance on drugs to do the work of society.

Sounds a lot like drugging kids labeled ADHD because parenting is hard work. I don't mean in all cases, but geez, the public schools today are rife with f'd up kids whose parents gave up on them long ago.