Instapundit points to this
April 22, 2013 Chicago Sun-Times article about a mentally ill woman who has been arrested 396 times on numerous charges, some of them for violent crimes, but she is still out on the street:
Since 1978, Chicago Police alone have arrested
Miles 396 times, mostly on the North Side — under at least 83 different
aliases. Those arrests include 92 for theft, 65 for disorderly conduct,
59 for prostitution-related crimes and five for robbery or attempted
robbery.
The frustrating truth: The system — strapped by
overcrowded prisons and cuts to mental health funding — hasn’t been able
to save Miles from herself or to help the communities she menaces.
Nothing has worked. Not jail. Not prison. Not countless psychological
exams for the woman described as being “acutely psychotic.”
And thanks to
Instapundit for linking to my book about this problem -- the one that the mainstream media would prefer to ignore. And Dave Kopel is banging the drum over at
April 18, 2013 National Review:
Today is a good day to begin what should have begun on December 15,
2012: the search for genuine reforms that could help prevent another
Newtown...
Because only a very small percentage of people who are mentally ill
are dangerously violent, it is essential that dialogue about reforms not
stigmatize the mentally ill as a general class. As with the deprivation
of any constitutional right, there must be strong protections for due
process, including fair hearings where both sides can present evidence,
and a neutral decision-maker. Especially with regard to America’s
veterans, such reforms are long overdue, and Senator Richard Burr’s
reform amendment on this issue got 56 votes yesterday.
But
mental-health reforms must go far beyond the issue of gun possession.
Some of the violent mentally ill, like the Aurora murderer, can build
sophisticated bombs. Anyone who is severely mentally ill and violent can
run over a crowd of people with a car.
The murderers in Tucson,
Aurora, and Newtown were all people who should have been civilly
committed for treatment. Half a century ago, they could have been.
State-level reforms should strengthen civil-commitment laws while fully
respecting due process. States’ funding for mental -health treatment
needs to be greatly increased. Over the past months, I have received
many e-mails from people who know someone who is mentally ill and
violent; again and again, they are told that the state or local
government has no resources to help the individual — until the
individual is caught perpetrating a violent felony, and then the
individual will be imprisoned. In fact, more spending on mental health
now would pay for itself in the long run with reduced prison costs.
Let's say that someone waved a magic checkbook and made the money happen. Is that the only barrier?
ReplyDeleteYou could probably crowdsource the funding for the worst walking time bombs if it's merely a matter of a lack of funds. I suspect that it's more than that but have no expertise to put data behind that intuition.
Money is only one of the barriers. The ACLU is zealous in insisting that involuntary commitment is a form of discrimination against the mentally ill. That was why Connecticut refused to make even a minor change in their commitment laws last year.
ReplyDeleteMoney comes and goes. Wouldn't it make sense to concentrate on the non-monetary barriers so that when good economic times return, we can actually go forward with a more sensible regime?
ReplyDeleteThat's the reason for the last book, and the law school symposium that I have been invited to in Connecticut in the fall.
ReplyDelete