Katsmeow
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 5,308
It's not about jailing them permanently. It's about behavior modification. It's about not pouring an equal amount of money into housing a few and offering "services" that don't change anything.
Step back and ask yourself why this mess did not exist 50 years ago? What's changed? As far as I can tell, it's tolerance of bad behavior and enabling addictions. It's not letting people feel the consequences of their actions. It's NOT writing the check to institutionalize people that cannot function that we used to write.
Yes, let's do ask why this didn't exist 50 years ago. One reason is that long term mental hospitals more or less vanished. At one time people with mental illness, chronic addictions, etc. were institutionalized often for long periods of time. The problem was that they were often not treated, just warehoused. At one time, there were no effective treatments available. But, then there were more treatments available.
This is a be careful what you wish for. There was a push to treat these people. And, eventually, it was ruled that you couldn't just warehouse without treatment the non-dangerous mentally ill. Many advocates celebrated that victory thinking it would mean that the non-dangerous mentally ill would receive treatment.
But, that isn't want happened. What happened was that they were simply released to the street. These were often people with serious mental illness/addiction. The idea that they are going to get a job and be able to get and keep it is, well, not accurate.
I have a daughter with mental illness (she does work actually but it is a struggle for her and she often loses jobs then has to find a new one, etc). Anyway, I remember one time when she was hospitalized and was about to be released -- she wasn't dangerous to others or herself at that moment. She still had a mental illness though. Anyway, we were picking her up from the hospital. I asked what they would have done if we didn't do it.
It was simple. They were going to give her a bus ticket and then simply release her to the street. She would have walked out of the hospital with the clothes on her back, a prescription (no money to fill it) and a single bus ticket. They would have given her the address to a group home that she could stay at...if she had the $700 or so that it cost to go pay for a month.
Even if she was functioning well enough then to work, it isn't that easy to do when you have no address and not a penny to your name. That single bus ticket doesn't do a whole lot for you.
I mean we can say that people who are addicts have made bad choices. But, that doesn't cure the addiction in the meantime. Mental illness itself is often a matter of bad luck.
That does not, by the way, mean that it is a good thing to give cash to the homeless. A better thing is to try to help them to get to a homeless shelter or place to get a meal (but, no, many won't accept that either due to mental illness or substance abuse). I once knew a guy who gave out transportation to a food pantry or homeless shelter. I forget the details and how he did it, but it seemed a better choice than giving out cash.
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