On: United States of Paranoia: A growing tribe of troubled minds

[phren0logy]

This is absolutely true, but many of these patients are at best ambivalent about treatment. They do not believe they are sick.

[Aelinsaar → phren0logy]

Which is why you need an infrastructure other than prisons and the streets to manage people who cannot manage themselves.

[vonmoltke → Aelinsaar]

Agreed, but the system you bemoan the dismantling of was basically a prison system by another name, and arguably less humane than what they have now.

[Aelinsaar → vonmoltke]

I agree, and I'm not suggesting that we turn the clock back to pre-1980's. The solution though, was no more to throw open the doors and say "To hell with this", than it would be with our broken prison system now, right? We needed to reform it, replace it, alongside our prisons.

We have to get over our need to punish, and start to count the dollars, realize that they can improve and save lives, and start rehabilitating. We can't do that when we have pathological cases mixed in with petty criminals, passionate "one-timers" and the like.

By the same token, we can't stop mass shootings when our standard treatment for schizophrenics without money is, "Find a nice streetcorner buddy." Most will die miserably, but of course a few will snap.