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I think the point he's trying to get across is this: First we had institutions for the mentally ill. Then we closed them all down, with the promise that they'd
by Analemma_ 7y ago
I think the point he's trying to get across is this:
First we had institutions for the mentally ill. Then we closed them all down, with the promise that they'd be replaced by community mental health care.
But since that care never showed up, all those people just starting going to jail instead. This is no better than the institutions, but they were "out of sight, out of mind", so no one cared.
What Holmes is saying is, since we're not going to put these people in jail anymore, we're now forced to really deal with the problem, instead of just shuffling them somewhere so we can pretend they don't exist. Either we get real mental health care, or they stay on the streets screaming at people. The choice is yours!
- olliej 7y agoYup, save money by cutting down services, knowing that people always vote for increased prison spending. It costs more to keep someone in prison than in a mental health facility, and the latter has the chance of assisting recovery, but yay prisons!
- booboolayla 7y agoDid I miss something here, did we invent cures for mental illnesses recently? There's no other way of dealing with it other than "shuffling them somewhere", be it a prison or a mental institution (which is also a prison of sorts)
- bobthepanda 7y agoIs this an actual choice one gets to make, though? Most mental health programs were funded (and then defunded) at the federal level with some state money. The prosecutor in question is local. And the problem is that even if the locality were to somehow raise all that money to launch comprehensive mental healthcare on its own, it would basically be a clarion call across the land for all the other cities to buy a one-way bus ticket for their homeless there, because now that one place has solved it why do they have to? Busing the homeless out to other places is a common occurrence: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...
- LordHumungous 7y agoWe still have institutions for the mentally ill, but Pete Holmes refuses to send people to them.