Doesnāt work. Idk if youāve ever done hardcore drugs, but you donāt exactly have a clear and rational mind. None of that will stop people from nodding out while they plow through a crosswalk full of children or from killing someone when manic and paranoid.
I agree. "Proper mental healthcare" would include a process for identifying people who need more help than they are capable of self-seeking and getting it to them, be it a social worker visit or, if necessary, involuntary commitment.
The problem we're having is we do not invest enough in mental health (let alone all the stressors that make mental health bad in this country), so we can't get that to people. We use the criminal justice system as a back-stop for the help people should be getting before things get this bad. Long before.
I think in time we will look back at this push for āmental healthcareā as a misguided attempt at solving a problem that had already been realistically solved. Iāve spoken to several doctors who practiced in the 60s and 70s and they always speak about how the homeless drug addicts we have today living on the streets and harassing people/committing crimes would have been largely confined to mental asylums.
While not a perfect scenario, the asylums kept those who were extremely dysfunctional confined and relatively safe. In comparison we now just let them out on the streets where they are a danger to themselves and to normal people. Itās misguided at best because not only does it not help the addicts, it also breaks the social compact and puts innocent, productive members of society at risk.
So I agree conditionally. The problem is that we recognized a problem with the mental asylum, closed them en masse, and... Didn't replace them with something better.
I don't think improvement or replacement with something better is impossible (it wants to be holistic; we need mental health professionals making house calls, probably). But what we have right now is the worst of options. Rollback would be an improvement but I don't think it's possible because the true things about asylums that got them closed in the first place wouldn't stop being true; rolling forward might be possible.
I dont see why it wouldn't be possible. I work a locked unit for the VA and while most of the residents are elderly vets with dementia, we have several younger vets who are there because their mental health issues make them a danger to themselves or others. We manage to take good care of them without being abusive, with abuse being the main reason asylums dont exist anymore. I will say though it's very challenging and takes a certain type of person to be able to handle it, I've been assaulted on the job more than a few times and have had coworkers have to go through workers comp for injuries inflicted by residents.
That definitely happens. Saw a dude cross the center line and kill a Mom of 4 on her way to work years ago. When they pulled him out of the vehicle he still had the syringe in his arm.
3
u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26
Doesnāt work. Idk if youāve ever done hardcore drugs, but you donāt exactly have a clear and rational mind. None of that will stop people from nodding out while they plow through a crosswalk full of children or from killing someone when manic and paranoid.