The woman may have been mentally disturbed, but whet she did was a crime. Was she arrested?
Arresting and prosecuting a mentally ill person for her behavior is like sending a sick child to the principal's office for throwing up on the carpet.
I'm amazed at how difficult this is for people to recognize.
I'm amazed at how difficult this is for people to recognize.
7
Thank you. But I wonder if often the gateway to the mental health system is our criminal system. The reluctance of many to avail themselves of treatment (fostered by the stigma associated with it) may make the criminal induction more likely.
Isn't tolerance part of the American credo? Of course, we want and need much, much better services for the mentally ill. But until then the drama of despair is our street theater. These are the scenes of daily life as it is lived in the mean time. Feel it deeply because that's what it means to live here, with people, people who struggle against solitude within the multitudes, all trying to make sense.
10
"Isn't tolerance part of the American credo?"
I don't ever recall reading the word 'tolerance' in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. In any case I wonder how far your tolerance would extend if your head or your property was the target of that rubber mallet.
I don't ever recall reading the word 'tolerance' in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. In any case I wonder how far your tolerance would extend if your head or your property was the target of that rubber mallet.
1
How quick we are to exaggerate first, and then condemn, based on the exaggeration. One reply talks of spilled brains and the other of being hit on the head with a hammer. That did not happen! So if we aren't a tolerant society because, in an example of simplistic thinking, it is not written into the Constitution, then how can we also be a country of immigrants, forcibly "different" and of whom we must have tolerance, forever and forever. We, as a society, have not agreed on how to serve the poorest members among us, the mentally ill. Who among us wants to invest more, to invest in curricula and innovation, to, simply put, care? Responses to my post resound of fear and paranoia (exaggeration).
6
I am amazed at how easily we tolerate mentally-ill people wandering the street. If we really cared about human beings, we would make sure they get treated. We do that for dogs wandering the streets; why can't we do that for humans?
20
Thank you. The next hammer she wields may very well be the usual variety, and it will be someone's brains that get scattered on the sidewalk.
The ACLU did us no favors when it decided that the violently insane should be allowed to live in group homes or roam the streets as they wish.
The ACLU did us no favors when it decided that the violently insane should be allowed to live in group homes or roam the streets as they wish.
6
I don't think the ACLU made that decision. It was the politicians who shut down the mental hospitals.
16
Persons who represent a danger to themselves or others may be held for treatment whether the treatment is voluntary or against their will. The ACLU did not pass the laws on institutionalization of the violent or nonviolent mentally ill. Get your facts straight!
7
Almost certainly, this woman's illness cannot be cured; probably not effectively treated without turning her into a human vegetable. Should she be confined for the rest of her life due to occasional "relatively harmless" incidents? Medicated until moribund? Sheltered in a confined environment perpetually? (and at and what cost/or benefit?). Who's able to accurately predict her propensity to cause serious harm?
Sometimes the status-quo is the best that can be done. Period.