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popeye1250 -> RE: Amid all the hysteria... (1/15/2011 11:46:39 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: samboct
A few points on the OP-
1) Please stop wringing your hands over our inability to fix this problem. If we keep telling the world that our representative form of democracy is the best government going, then we have a collective responsibility to fix the problem here.
2) The problem is simple- we don't have enough beds in mental health institutions or people trained to treat mental illnesses. Instead of mental health facilities- we've built prisons. We have states competing for a prison populations such as South Dakota- but there simply aren't the resources to treat guys like Loughner. We can now lock him up in a prison instead- a far more expensive solution than prison by the way. And claiming that docs and nurses are more expensive than prison guards? Last time I checked, there were communities of prison guards making six figure salaries. Mental institutions are far less expensive to build than maximum security prisons. According to a recent article in the NY Times, there are about 400,000 psychotics in the US. IIRC, about 10% are in prison. On average, this population is involved in fewer violent crimes than the rest of us- so clearly, being psychotic doesn't make you a criminal. But it's difficult for the rest of us to interact with these folks- their behavior often makes us uncomfortable. It's also possible that they're involved in a number of unreported crimes such as stalking since stalking and psychotics go hand in hand. However, in terms of violent crimes, when somebody runs amok and begins shooting people, about half of them are psychotics.
4) As noted, these guys are crazy- they don't perceive reality as the rest of us do. Input from the world is irrelevant. So much as I dislike Glen Beck, Palin, et al.- they're irrelevant until they stand in the way of a potential solution. They didn't cause Loughner's illness, and they're not responsible for his actions.
5) The politician who is responsible is dead- Ronald Reagan. By cutting the funding for mental health hospitals, most of these facilities closed during his administration.
6) For a heartfelt plea on this problem, I think Lockit's eloquent posts in the 30 page plus Giffords thread got drowned out- which is a shame.
7) Suggestion- send an email to your congressman suggesting that money for prisons be diverted to constructing and running mental health institutions. Heck- we might even save some money overall!
Sam
Hey Sambo, well said.
However in Massachusetts it was Gov. Mike Dukakis who was closing down state mental hospitals in the 70's *before* Reagan became president. It's the states that run or, should I say ran those hospitals not the feds.
Lots of Dems were more interested in those people's "freedoms" than safety and closed the mental hospitals. (ACLU lawsuits?)
And yes, this guy doesn't perceive reality like the rest of us, they said he's a "paranoid schitzophrenic", you could talk to one of them and your words might sound like an opera to them and if a car drove by they might perceive it as a steam locomotive turning blue and green or something like that. Real bigtime brain damage.
What was that movie with Russel Crowe as the scitzophrenic scientist?
I've donated to three homeless shelters for decades now and when I lived up in New England I volunteered at homeless shelters and there's plenty of people who live on the streets who are mentally ill and it's not so much that they're "dangerous" to society or anything like that quite the opposite, they get victimized by other street people and lowlifes.
So it's not so much that they should be locked up as they should be "protected" by society.
How can we as a society simply release mentally ill people onto the streets to fend for themselves simply because some groups think they should have their "freedom?"
The "nut houses" as they called them in New England in the 1960's were built mostly in the 1800's early 1900's and looked like huge red brick prisons with bars on the windows more to "hold" people than to protect them.
We should be building large facilities designed like dormatories or barracks' with individual sleeping rooms, a dinning hall, recreation rooms, medical facilities etc. Most of those people living on the streets are malnourished and in need of medical/dental care so those issues need to be dealt with.
One thing I think everyone would agree with is that turning those unfortunate people out onto the streets over the last 40 years or so has been a disaster.
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