Hard to source this claim exactly but after many discussions on the topic, my view is that people across the political spectrum believed that there were adequat

Hard to source this claim exactly but after many discussions on the topic, my view is that people across the political spectrum believed that there were adequate outpatient mental health resources for the newly released individuals. Either they imagined it was already available or that the money saved on running the institutions would instantly create it (with some left over). There was a massive underestimation of the scope of the problem.