ralph

Rich, don't feel bad. I'm as conservative and republican as they come;
but I too can see a need to reform the way that mentally ill people
are both perceived and then treated by our government.
I am particularly concerned about the horror stories I hear
about mental patients in jails and prisons being denied their meds, or
having their meds and doses changed to their detriment, in order to
either make things easier for the administrators or cheaper for the
tax payers. Then, as you have pointed out in previous posts, many
mental patients end up in jails because there are no other avenues
available for their care and treatment when they become "socially
unacceptable" be that homeless, self-medicated on street drugs, or the
infamous "danger to themselves or others". There needs to be
alternatives to jails and the resulting inhumane treatment of the
mental patient that takes place in a jail situation often when they
are unable to understand the situation they are in or to speak up for
themselves to assure proper treatment.
There needs to be an acceptable half way point between the
abuses of the charactature "mental institutions" of the past where
people where wholesale stored for their entire lives without hope of a
better life and the "throw them in the streets and throw them in jail
when they screw up" philosophy that seems to be todays attitude. And
please remember, it is the bleeding heart liberals that got the laws
passed that said you can't keep a mental patient in custodial
treatment for long periods of time. Now, the conservatives use these
laws to keep costs down; but it was the liberals who got these laws
passed in the first place. So BOTH sides are a fault here.
The most basic truth in this argument is that the people best
qualified to determine weither a person is mentally ill, and what
treatment they need and for how long; are the people who have least
say and control over this situation. Who makes the decissions about
mentally ill people in our society? Politicians and Judges who know
little or nothing about mental illness; and even when they consult a
PDoc, they don't have the knowledge or background to understand the
full implications of mental illness. PDocs should make the decissions
about weither a person is a criminal or weither they commited a
criminal act because of a mental illness. Then if they determine that
the person is mentally ill; only a PDoc should be able to decide what
treatment they need and for how long (or perhaps a review board made
up of PDocs, so that no one person's opinion determines a person's
treatment by the government.).
There are many other issues of disparity that faces the mental
patient in our society. The fact that medicare pays for 80% of covered
physical ailments but only 50% of covered mental ailments. The fact
that the American's with Disabilities Act is a sham and totally
useless when it comes to helping the mentally ill in our society. The
fact that the mentally ill are seen as just being lazy and morally
bankrupt and are told that "we could work if we wanted to"; even when
our PDocs determine that we are unable to work because of our illness.
These are all things that we should be livid about and should be
making as big a political stink about as we possibly can. But we can't
withstand the stress of taking on "the powers that be" and even if we
did, we are so small a percentage of the voting population that the
politicians can get away with not giving a damned about us.
That's my 2 cents worth on the subject. Hugs, Ralph

rich

Amen to that, Ralph. Mental illness should not be a crime.
I also wanted to point out the sheer numbers of people jailed. I have read
that we have the highest per capita incarceration rate on earth.