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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Reagan deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill and the incredible increase of crime in the US
Increased numbers of jail and prison inmates with severe mental illness have been inversely associated with public hospital bed numbers since the initiation of deinstitutionalization.
The proportion of mentally ill individuals within the homeless population is typically estimated at roughly one-third of all males and two-thirds of all females.
Staff in emergency departments in some states complain that psychiatric patients can be boarded in EDs for 24 to 48 hours. As remarkably long as that may sound, ED workers in other states scoff at this figure, reporting that they have psychiatric patients stuck in emergency departments as long as four weeks
....mental illness-related calls outnumbered calls for routine larceny, traffic accidents and domestic disputes.
http://tacreports.org/consequences
ALSO:
http://tacreports.org/tables <-- this allows you to see where your state ranks. Also, look at beds per 100,000
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Skittles
(153,095 posts)he was DISGUSTING
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)Got a lot of blue-collars (who the corptocracy eventually screwed) to vote against their best economic interests.
"Hey, the CEO isn't the cause of your problems, the gubmint and the (insert long-demonized group here)s that leech off of it are!!"
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand then Reagan busted PATCO and the CEOs followed suit and busted everything else. Oh, and to add insult to injury, set up a casino using OUR money. And all they got was "away with it".
Replace "Blue Collar" with "White Collar" above and you have "The Bush Administration".
Dumberica fell for the act TWICE.
"Fool me once . . . . " indeed.
Skittles
(153,095 posts)most of them cannot figure out that Reagan + Bush is why America they are so f***ed now 
Boomerproud
(7,934 posts)came across as a kindly grandfather who didn't challenge them to do anything to better this world. All problems were the fault of "those other people" He was the father of "projectionism". We will live with his legacy for a very long time.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)A federal judge's objection to what he called the horrific treatment of some mentally ill inmates in California prisons highlights a trend that has been building for decades in the state and across the country: As mental hospitals closed or were scaled back, prisons and county jails have become the de facto housing for many who are mentally ill.
Nationwide, 10 times more seriously mentally ill individuals are in state prisons and jails than in state mental hospitals, the Arlington, Va.-based Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs' Association said last week in what it called the first national study of how mentally ill inmates receive treatment.
"Prison and jail officials are being asked to assume responsibility for the nation's most seriously mentally ill individuals, despite the fact that the officials did not sign up to do this job; are not trained to do it; face severe legal restrictions in their ability to provide treatment for such individuals; and yet are held responsible when things go wrong, as they inevitably do under such circumstances," the study said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/prisons-mental-heath_n_5152099.html
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)to go to and talk in, or counseling of any kind.
That's in the state mental hospitals. Nothing but antidepressants (wellbutrin) and one hour a week of recreational therapy, which consisted of playing Pictionary with other inmates. Basically a waste of time if you're unemployed, afraid you're gonna lose your house, have aging senile parents blaming you for not having a job, and all that kind of situational stuff.
No help whatsoever, unlike the private hospitals. They seem to be unable to deal with depression because they assume you must be addicted to some substance as well.
I think they exist just to make sure that people with serious mental problems are taking their thorazine.
According to my friend.....two weeks of voluntary commitment was useless. No coping techniques taught, no discussion groups, nothing.
Ronnie really fucked this country up BADLY.
LuvNewcastle
(16,834 posts)People without insurance and/or caring friends and family are completely fucked. They usually end up committing suicide or they're victimized, either by people on the street or in the prisons.
Even if a judge sends them to a mental hospital after they've committed some crime, they're treated with the drugs they need, and when they become stable they're released without the ability to continue buying their meds.
If they're lucky, they'll get set up with a free program to help the mentally ill continue counseling and provide free meds, but the knowledge about these programs isn't generally known. You have to know people who can help set you up.
This country should be ashamed for the way the mentally ill are treated here. Unfortunately, a mass murder is too often the only cry for help that's ever heard in America.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)are in your area, but I just Googled "support groups" for my state and there are literally hundreds upon hundreds, for just about anything you can think of, anxiety and depression included.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)A federal judge's objection to what he called the horrific treatment of some mentally ill inmates in California prisons highlights a trend that has been building for decades in the state and across the country: As mental hospitals closed or were scaled back, prisons and county jails have become the de facto housing for many who are mentally ill.
Nationwide, 10 times more seriously mentally ill individuals are in state prisons and jails than in state mental hospitals, the Arlington, Va.-based Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs' Association said last week in what it called the first national study of how mentally ill inmates receive treatment.
"Prison and jail officials are being asked to assume responsibility for the nation's most seriously mentally ill individuals, despite the fact that the officials did not sign up to do this job; are not trained to do it; face severe legal restrictions in their ability to provide treatment for such individuals; and yet are held responsible when things go wrong, as they inevitably do under such circumstances," the study said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/prisons-mental-heath_n_5152099.html
Sognefjord
(229 posts)HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)And steadily grew after WWII. It rapidly expanded after the Community Mental Health Act of 1963 (CMHA) (also known as Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act, Mental Retardation Facilities and Construction Act, Public Law 88-164, or the Mental Retardation and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act of 1963). The CMHA was signed by JFK.
Blaming Reagan has become popular but is a rewritten narrative of history. The serious global recession of 57-58, followed by it's double dip in 60-61 caused many states to look for ways to eliminate costs. For many state governments the CMHA provided a mechanism to reduce costs of operating mental hospitals under the cover of an argument from -inside- the mental health care industry; where voices argued better outcomes were available for most patients through community-based care.
While Reagan's administration certainly pushed for reduction in social welfare the closing of mental hospitals was well underway by the 1980's.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)I would add that this was not an intent to victimize perpetrated by the government. It came about through self advocacy. The Olmstead decision was another significant movement towards deinstitutionalization and it continues to this day. Neither conservatives nor liberals are blameless when it comes to disability discrimination. The pity\care-taking model has been perceived by some to be compassionate, but it has actually been damaging.
The Time is Now
(86 posts)Another golden egg of libertarianism:
Thomas Stephen Szasz 1920-2012) was a psychiatrist and academic. .... He was a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as of scientism. His books The Myth of Mental Illness (1961) and The Manufacture of Madness (1970) set out some of the arguments with which he is most associated.[Wikipedia]
Szasz argued that mental illnesses are not real in the sense that cancers are real. Except for a few identifiable brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, there are “neither biological or chemical tests nor biopsy or necropsy findings for verifying or falsifying DSM diagnoses", i.e. there are no objective methods for detecting the presence or absence of mental illness.[4]
His views on special treatment followed from libertarian roots which are based on the principles that each person has the right to bodily and mental self-ownership and the right to be free from violence from others, although he criticized the "Free World" as well as the communist states for their use of psychiatry.
A lot of the politics that motivated deinstitutionalization cited Szasz's work. Indeed, much of it grew directly from Szasz's own advocacy, having founded the American Association for the Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization (AAAIMH) in 1970. Note that this organization and both of his books pre-dated St. Ronnie's reign. The move to deinstitutionalize was well ensconced before 1980. On the other hand, there were clearly abuses in mental facilities during that time, which first gained public airing by, hold for it, Geraldo Rivera when we worked for the local New York City ABC News outlet, and did an exposé on Willoughbrook on Staten Island.
None of which ought to be to be construed as an apology for the most destructive presidency of the 20th century, Harding's and Hoover's notwithstanding.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)The later was so damaging to the image of the state of Massachusetts that it was banned from being shown there.
Szasz was in many ways similar to behavioralists who saw mental illness as a sociological issue. But Szasz was also something of an ass, demeaning of victims of mental illness and firmly believed it was mostly a matter of malingering.
His belief that physical lesions must be present to demonstrate illness and his claim that mental illness generally didn't manifest lesions was mostly a matter of the undeveloped state of cellular and molecular aspects of neurobiology.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)
pampango
(24,692 posts)an "incredible increase of crime" in general which has actually declined. If it were not for the increase in calls to police related to and crimes committed by mentally ill individuals the decrease in crime would be even more dramatic giving conservatives even less reason to bemoan the state of our society and call for more guns in the hands of individuals to control the "lawlessness rampant in the country".
It is certainly true that "law enforcement officers (are) becoming front-line mental health workers ..." That is a sad, sad consequence of the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. As the article points out, they are most often housed in jails now rather than public hospital beds but they are still institutionalized.
Mondavi
(176 posts)Original intent of releasing the mentally ill from institutions was based in awareness of chemical imbalances and treatment by drugs which were improving their conditions above what talking therapy was doing for them.
Intent was also to provide half-way houses, supervision, guidance, permanent lodging and a real place in the community. Very little of that support was provided.
Over time, anti-depressant medications produced by Big Pharma have more and more serious side effects, many of which produce the very effects they were intended to prevent, especially when patients are forced off these medications abruptly due to costs. Prices continue to soar needlessly for all medications and US still lacks a universal health care system which would cover everyone, including medications.
Poverty and illness are being turned into crimes which provide large profits.
Many of the drugs are addictive and do lifelong harm to patients who were given these medications and should be taken off the market. But treatment programs for those addicted are also profitable, including now pushing shock treatments as cures for these addictions.
Our corrupted system of government is at fault, not the ill.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)those with mental illness. There are those for whom medicine does not work or even harms. There are those for whom medicine saves their lives. My husband is having a recurring bout of PTSD right now and I can tell you that medicine has saved his life in the past and have no doubt is still keeping him sane enough right now not to harm himself. He plans on getting back into psychological therapy as well. Medicine is not the cure all but sometimes it can be a life saver.
Mondavi
(176 posts)with much more limited side effects and at very modest costshas been replaced by HBP medications which are variations in strength and added ingredients which often are there simply to prevent their patents from expiring and cost per dose hundreds of times more than the original. The ill among us do not benefit from the greed of Big Pharma. Or as someone recently said, health care based in profits is ruinous.
Whatever help from medications is available now to any patient would be much more likely to be beneficial if the profits were eliminated.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)sometimes medicine is necessary and life saving. I hear people bash medication all the time on DU, and I agree that Big Pharma is greedy and we need to take the profit out of it. But I will never say that all medicine is all bad all the time. I and my loved ones have benefited too greatly from it to ever say that.
Mondavi
(176 posts)I think they're bashing Big Pharma which is very different. And Big Pharma has been permitted to charge obscene prices and create drugs with dictionary length side effects because our government has been so corrupted. Imagine how many people have become addicted to Percoset or Oxycotin which should be taken off the market. These addictions last a lifetime.
auntsue
(277 posts)I took many medications from 2011 to 2013 for post surgical pain. I had three surgeries. Oxycontin and oxycodone were essential to my recovery. I weaned my self from them. Some people do become addicted, may others do not. I never took more than prescribed, I didn't feel high or euphoric. Please don't say that this drug should be taken off the market...........doctors need to be more aware when prescribing
Mondavi
(176 posts)oxycotin and percoset being only two of them.
In fact, Obama was supposed to take Percoset off the market right after he was elected but never happened. Your presumption is that we can't have reliable painkillers without the side effect of their being addictive for many.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)treatment for the mentally ill, but I think that has more to do with Scientology offering for-profit Scientology-based "religious" pseudo-programs allegedly geared to the mentally ill.
As for what is actually happening in the U.S. with the mentally ill, this is what is happening:
A federal judge's objection to what he called the horrific treatment of some mentally ill inmates in California prisons highlights a trend that has been building for decades in the state and across the country: As mental hospitals closed or were scaled back, prisons and county jails have become the de facto housing for many who are mentally ill.
Nationwide, 10 times more seriously mentally ill individuals are in state prisons and jails than in state mental hospitals, the Arlington, Va.-based Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs' Association said last week in what it called the first national study of how mentally ill inmates receive treatment.
"Prison and jail officials are being asked to assume responsibility for the nation's most seriously mentally ill individuals, despite the fact that the officials did not sign up to do this job; are not trained to do it; face severe legal restrictions in their ability to provide treatment for such individuals; and yet are held responsible when things go wrong, as they inevitably do under such circumstances," the study said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/prisons-mental-heath_n_5152099.html
Mondavi
(176 posts)and who have pretty much lost the planet for us.
And, if any of the mentally ill who are untreated are "dangerous" as you suggest, readers should know that they are mainly dangerous to themselves, not others.
When decades ago, patients were released from vile institutions where they were often abused and mistreated and tortured with insane treatments, there was to be a support system which never happened. And, this didn't begin under Reagan. It began quite some time before as the chemical imbalances became clear and as drugs were developed which began to work. Certainly, this was happening during the Carter administration. The very question of "chemical imbalances" in the brain and why this is happening receives no more attention than the pollution of our planet as a cause of cancer. The brain is the most vulnerable organ of the body and we can likely see over a thousand years and more that use of various metals and other substances may be possible causes of these effects on the brain.
It is naive not to understand the role that profits play in our wars, with corporations manufacturing weapons, or in the healthcare system. Profits are dangerous to the health and well-being of everyone on the planet.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)Mondavi
(176 posts)Those who pollute our planet, destroy species, create wars, weapons of mass destruction, torture programs and other insane projects are as mentally ill as those we label mentally ill.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)Not sure where you are? Not sure who you are? All alone? Freezing, starving and scared to death? No excuse to lash out. Don't try to appeal to our better natures, they are non-existent. In the hole you go, don't make a scene, hope you get better, or not.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)OTOH, some of the institutions these people lived in before were really no better than prison, and in some cases, even worse.
I worked in Human Services in the 80s, soon after Reagan's actions.
We could usually tell which institution some of those poor people had lived in previously.
I don't know what the answer is to the problem...
Mondavi
(176 posts)which would also include medications.
A less corrupt government would also give us a more just society where we could work out ways to help the mentally ill and the extreme numbers of cancer patients and other illnesses. Neither does it benefit society nor patients that elites are the gate-keepers of our natural plants/drugs which are the models for our drugs. Elites have long had control over our drugs/medications going back 100 years and more.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)people actually get the help they require. For some it might be medication and help to get them integrated into life, for others it might be a place where they can be safe, for others it might be therapy, and so on.
I think what's happening now, with so many untreated, uncared for mentally ill ending up arrested for crime and suffering the torture of prisons, is unconscionable.
is to fund institutions so that they can help people to the fullest extent possible, and if the person cannot move on, provide them with a quality life in a safe environment.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)
Initech
(100,013 posts)I'm talking the 345:1 CEO to worker path ratio. And companies that are making billions and getting away with obscene cash hoarding. And no one gets punished. I bet if we started prosecuting the real criminals we'd see those numbers are accurate.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)I agree with you that at the bottom of our problems is the theft of the 1%.
However, those who are suffering are at the bottom - they are the mentally ill who need, but have to go without round the clock medical care and end up in prison for crimes, instead of being cared for.
And they are those of us who do NOT live hiding and protected behind walled palaces like the 1% do.
We who are not the 1% are the ones who have to live side by side with the uncared-for mentally ill, people who have no control, and who can't get any help, so they end up committing crimes and in prison.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)since the 1990s and are currently similar to 1960s crime rates. So there has not been any raise in crime in the US, much less an incredible one. I find it annoying that this bit of incorrect rhetoric mars a perfectly good opportunity to slam Reagan, who started dismantling mental health care in CA as Governor.
Lonusca
(202 posts)I do agree with a poster here who mentioned a lot of these places were hell holes.
I guess my question is this - would we (the US) even be able to provide the same institutionalization we did prior to Reagan? Are we even legally able to do it? I'm not talking about the legality of actually providing the service - I am talking about mandatory institutionalization. We can't force people to go to shelters, how do we institutionalize people?
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)Even with the ACA, it can take weeks or months to get in to see a psychologist or psychiatrist and the cost of the deductibles, copays and prescriptions is just too much for many.
Progressive dog
(6,898 posts)for ending forced commitments of patients to psychiatric hospitals. That started before Reagan and was on balance a good thing, moving much treatment to group homes and to outpatient. Many states chose not to provide other treatment options and walked away from their responsibilities.
We do not have the right to lock people up and subject them to treatments (including electro-shock and insulin induced shock) or even mood altering drugs without their consent. The rule is that they must be a danger to themselves or others for the government to forcibly incarcerate the mentally ill.
BTW There is no incredible increase in crime due to the mentally ill.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)A federal judge's objection to what he called the horrific treatment of some mentally ill inmates in California prisons highlights a trend that has been building for decades in the state and across the country: As mental hospitals closed or were scaled back, prisons and county jails have become the de facto housing for many who are mentally ill.
Nationwide, 10 times more seriously mentally ill individuals are in state prisons and jails than in state mental hospitals, the Arlington, Va.-based Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs' Association said last week in what it called the first national study of how mentally ill inmates receive treatment.
"Prison and jail officials are being asked to assume responsibility for the nation's most seriously mentally ill individuals, despite the fact that the officials did not sign up to do this job; are not trained to do it; face severe legal restrictions in their ability to provide treatment for such individuals; and yet are held responsible when things go wrong, as they inevitably do under such circumstances," the study said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/prisons-mental-heath_n_5152099.html
hack89
(39,171 posts)Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)too often (because they cannot take care of themselves) commit crimes, end up arrested. Nowhere along that road are they able to make decisions for themselves, or take care for themselves, because they are individuals that need to be taken care of. IF they had someone to care for them, it'd be a whole 'nother story. But they don't have anyone to care for them in any way.
http://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/criminal-justice/mentally-ill-offenders-u-s-criminal-justice-system#
Many of those on death row are mentally ill. You can google a lot more information, as I don't have the time to do that for you right now. I'm sure you can do as well as I do.
What the solution is, I suspect, is to return to allocating funds to care of the mentally ill, reversing the trend started by Reagan and the Reaganites.
Mondavi
(176 posts)We've seen how many disturbed people are killed by police when they are really no threat to them or anyone else, but the response by police is entirely inappropriate.
Many patients don't know that it can take 6 months to properly withdraw from an anti-depressant drug. Many patients no longer have health insurance. There is little government support for the unemployed any longer. When they can no longer afford the drug they need they simply stop taking it which can cause the very problems for which they are taking the drug.
We've also seen how many mentally ill are beaten and abused by police. Some have actually been killed.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)The care their loved ones needs. Hopefully this will be helped with ACA. If you had medical insurance it only covered about 50% of the cost. One of the sad things was during the Reagan administration many long time patients was released from hospitals and did not have the ability to care for themselves on the outside. I know of particular lady whose family placed her at a young age, she had many treatments over the years, probably never needed treatment but did not do well outside, it was very sad.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)It really is a sad commentary on our society that we do not care for those that need our help most ... in fact we criminalize their illness (or more specifically we criminalize many symptoms of their illness)
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)In November 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan overwhelmingly defeated Jimmy Carter, who received less than 42% of the popular vote, for president. Republicans took control of the Senate (53 to 46), the first time they had dominated either chamber since 1954. Although the House remained under Democratic control (243 to 192), their margin was actually much slimmer, because many southern “boll weevil” Democrats voted with the Republicans.
One month prior to the election, President Carter had signed the Mental Health Systems Act, which had proposed to continue the federal community mental health centers program, although with some additional state involvement. Consistent with the report of the Carter Commission, the act also included a provision for federal grants “for projects for the prevention of mental illness and the promotion of positive mental health,” an indication of how little learning had taken place among the Carter Commission members and professionals at NIMH. With President Reagan and the Republicans taking over, the Mental Health Systems Act was discarded before the ink had dried and the CMHC funds were simply block granted to the states. The CMHC program had not only died but been buried as well. An autopsy could have listed the cause of death as naiveté complicated by grandiosity.
President Reagan never understood mental illness. Like Richard Nixon, he was a product of the Southern California culture that associated psychiatry with Communism. Two months after taking office, Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, a young man with untreated schizophrenia. Two years later, Reagan called Dr. Roger Peele, then director of St. Elizabeths Hospital, where Hinckley was being treated, and tried to arrange to meet with Hinckley, so that Reagan could forgive him. Peele tactfully told the president that this was not a good idea. Reagan was also exposed to the consequences of untreated mental illness through the two sons of Roy Miller, his personal tax advisor. Both sons developed schizophrenia; one committed suicide in 1981, and the other killed his mother in 1983. Despite such personal exposure, Reagan never exhibited any interest in the need for research or better treatment for serious mental illness....
(CONTINUED AT THE LINK AT THE TOP)
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)... I was lucky enough to get a copy of Will Bunch's "Tear Down This Myth." It's about Reagan's distorted legacy. Good reading!
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)mandatory reading for everyone.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)forcing patients out into the streets, and many hospitals to close. Im not sure that that can be directly tied to a crime increase, though. The mentally ill are more likely to be crime victims than perpetrators. And much of the crime increase was tied to gangs and drugs, especially cocaine in the later 70s and 80s. And crime has been on a downswing for 15 years or so now... longer sentences, three-strikes laws, and such have kept many career criminals behind bars rather than on the streets. So Im a bit skeptical of your causation and conclusion.