“Betcha there is enough on her to prove she should have been in a mental institution and would have been if this was the 1950s or 60s before the mental hospitals were closed in the 1970s.”
Won’t take that bet. And yes, we should’ve never closed the hospitals society had created to care for such people and prevent them from harming the rest of us. From what I can discern, the idea behind the closures was that virtually all of the then patients would actually be better off out in society, monitored and medicated, living in half-way houses. Plus, holding them against their will was illegal. Plus Plus, turning them loose was far less expensive than hospitalization. So the mental hospitals got pretty much emptied out. Unfortunately, the right people weren’t thinking through the possibility that the theory was wrong. Had they considered that possibility, perhaps they would have realized the IMpossibility of ever going back; to at some point having to go out and physically round up unstable people and institutionalize them involuntarily. Had they realized that THAT would never happen, perhaps we’d not be in the situation we’re in today.
Before the psych hospitals were closed lots of inmates were committed there by relatives to get rid of them. Given the choice between that and setting them all free I would choose to set them all free, but some middle ground would have been better. Commit them only by court order for a set term with mandatory release at the end. And that is happening some now.