A few points missing here. First, the funds used to support asylums were supposed to be transferred to Community Mental Health Centers when the asylums were closed. That did not happen, partly out of the belief that the new antipsychotics would make community living feasible, but also to save $. Reagan was instrumental in finally overtur…
A few points missing here. First, the funds used to support asylums were supposed to be transferred to Community Mental Health Centers when the asylums were closed. That did not happen, partly out of the belief that the new antipsychotics would make community living feasible, but also to save $. Reagan was instrumental in finally overturning the Mental Health System Act. You can thank Republicans for nixing funding for serious mental illness. Second, in 1999 the Supreme Court ruled in Olmstead v LC that the mentally ill could not be segregated because it was discrimination; the mentally ill had a right to be integrated into the community. You can thank a progressive court for that. Third, just because a mentally ill person has a guardian or conservator does NOT mean they can be made to take their medication. Besides being impossible in a practical sense, most state guardianship laws would probably not authorize such an action.
The real issue is that there are neither laws nor funding to support institutionalizing the forensic mentally ill. They cycle through jail and the courts but there has never been the public will to demand they are kept off the streets and retained in a forensic treatment facility with evidence-based care. SAMHSA can fund a few community-based FACT programs but they are not adequate to the level of need. Olmstead will have to he challenged at some point.
It wasn't "Reagan" it was the 1975 O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in mental health law ruling that a state cannot constitutionally confine a non-dangerous individual who is capable of surviving safely in freedom by themselves or with the help of willing and responsible family members or friends. The state mental hospitals were still operating under Reagan, but once this terrible SC decision went into law, it essentially closed the institutions.
Thank you, I'm so sick of liberals blaming any and every social ill on something Reagan did 40 years ago. The Democrats have been in power multiple times in the intervening years and could have rectified it if they chose. Maybe there's blame to go around, but ultimately it was these terrible court decisions (resulting from lawsuits by ACLU and the like) that brought us to where we are now. And the ultimate irony is that these people ARE, evidently, a danger to themselves and others, as we are seeing every day. They are only nondangerous on the outside IF they take their medication as they're supposed to, which they don't. And most don't actually have "willing and responsible family members" to look after them, or if they do, they are helpless to do so as described in this essay.
A few points missing here. First, the funds used to support asylums were supposed to be transferred to Community Mental Health Centers when the asylums were closed. That did not happen, partly out of the belief that the new antipsychotics would make community living feasible, but also to save $. Reagan was instrumental in finally overturning the Mental Health System Act. You can thank Republicans for nixing funding for serious mental illness. Second, in 1999 the Supreme Court ruled in Olmstead v LC that the mentally ill could not be segregated because it was discrimination; the mentally ill had a right to be integrated into the community. You can thank a progressive court for that. Third, just because a mentally ill person has a guardian or conservator does NOT mean they can be made to take their medication. Besides being impossible in a practical sense, most state guardianship laws would probably not authorize such an action.
The real issue is that there are neither laws nor funding to support institutionalizing the forensic mentally ill. They cycle through jail and the courts but there has never been the public will to demand they are kept off the streets and retained in a forensic treatment facility with evidence-based care. SAMHSA can fund a few community-based FACT programs but they are not adequate to the level of need. Olmstead will have to he challenged at some point.
It wasn't "Reagan" it was the 1975 O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in mental health law ruling that a state cannot constitutionally confine a non-dangerous individual who is capable of surviving safely in freedom by themselves or with the help of willing and responsible family members or friends. The state mental hospitals were still operating under Reagan, but once this terrible SC decision went into law, it essentially closed the institutions.
Thank you, I'm so sick of liberals blaming any and every social ill on something Reagan did 40 years ago. The Democrats have been in power multiple times in the intervening years and could have rectified it if they chose. Maybe there's blame to go around, but ultimately it was these terrible court decisions (resulting from lawsuits by ACLU and the like) that brought us to where we are now. And the ultimate irony is that these people ARE, evidently, a danger to themselves and others, as we are seeing every day. They are only nondangerous on the outside IF they take their medication as they're supposed to, which they don't. And most don't actually have "willing and responsible family members" to look after them, or if they do, they are helpless to do so as described in this essay.