Once you commit violence because you're a nutter you should be in the loony bin a supportive and caring environment in which you receive appropriate treatment while being involuntarily excluded from wider society for the protection of all involved, including you.
FTFY.
I didn't like the term looney bin, but I do think that severely mentally ill people who are violent are better off in a good mental facility then they are in one of our horrendous prisons. Actually, nobody should have to suffer in our cruel and inhumane prisons. America and probably a lot of other countries need prison reform. And, right now, we don't have many if any decent publicly supported mental hospitals. The one that was still open a few years ago here in Georgia was horrible, based on an investigative report I read about it.
Before most of the long term care mental hospitals were closed down, I considered working in one in NC. It was in a very old building, but the care was excellent, based on my observations, but we decided to move so I changed my plans again. The hospital where I received my psych training while in Texas was excellent. Of course that was back in the day when Dems ran the state, so they were more concerned about poor people and those who suffered from severe mental disorders. I prefer to think of these illnesses as brain disorders as that is what they are, including psychopathy, the worst of them all. That hospitals had a unit for the "criminally insane". I'm not fond of that term, but admired the nurses who worked on that unit. They all wore some type of emergency alarms to use in case they were attacked by a resident. I doubt many people would work in such an environment these days.
Many of the residents were only there for a short time, until they could be stabilized. It was during the Reagan administration that money was cut back for mental health. NC had a plan to use visiting nurses to check on the status of these folks, but I don't think that worked out very well. People like my father who had severe PTSD and bipolar disorder didn't need to be hospitalized, but some of my former patients who lived in a personal care home would never survive on their own without a lot of help. They would have been living on the street, confused and without adequate food etc.
What I've found here in Georgia, when it comes to those with the most severe types of mental illness is that if they don't have supportive families, they end up homeless. If they do have supportive families, who can't take them in, but who are willing to take the time to find them a place to live, many of them end up in personal care homes, which are the same as assisted living facilities, but more regulated, as they take Medicaid, our insurance for the most poor.
In addition to people who suffered from various forms of dementia, the residents where I worked included several with schizophrenia, severe bipolar disorder with schizo-affective disorder, depression and anxiety disorders. At least they were living in a clean, well kept place with fairly decent food and good care. There were a few workers who had to be let go due to their inability to care for these folks, but I would never had worked there for so many years if the care hadn't been decent. Perhaps some small facilities for those who need the most help would be a way to provide care for those who suffer from severe brain disorders and have no family who will or can care for them. Of course, as long as the far right has so much power, that will be no more than a fantasy.
For anyone interested in having a better understanding of the plight of the mentally ill, I sugges the book "Nobody Cares About Crazy People", I'll have to look up the author but it was written by a man who lost his son to severe mental illness. He did a lot of research on the history of how mentally ill people have been treated throughout history. It's not pretty.
Why do so many people hate the homeless? A lot of them suffer from mental illness, addiction, and/or extreme poverty. Some of them are older adults who can't afford to live on their tiny SS entitlements. Some of them even have jobs but can't afford rent. I read about some in a long article a few years ago who were living in a tent in NYCity. The female had a job and she described how she had to use public restrooms to clean herself up and get to work etc. It was heartbreaking, but I guess some people lack empathy for those who suffer from these problems. That's pretty obvious.
