The reason we have masses of mentally ill people living unmedicated and homeless is entirely political. Virtually all other Western developed nations have some kind of system for dealing with the chronic mentally ill who don’t have family able or willing to care for them, but the United States as simply treated it as a problem that some kind of ‘market’ will take care of in some undefined capacity. Most mentally ill people—even schizophrenic and schizoaffective—are not dangerous (except to themselves) but a combination of a lack of any kind of support or medication combined with the constant stress and hostility of street living can turn a nominally non-hostile person into being aggressive as a defense mechanism.
And the stupid thing is that it would be easier, cheaper, and far more effective to deal with this pre-emptively as a mental health problem with trained social workers than reactively as a law enforcement problem with police officers who are untrained and largely unexperienced in dealing with serious mental health issues. But we don’t to that because…capitalism? I don’t think there is even a good rationale other than that we just don’t have the collective will to care for people who cannot care for themselves.
Stranger
