Should mental illness combined with homelessness be a crime?

[Anonymous]

Many people that are homeless are also mentally ill and annoy others and threaten property values in some places. Should they be arrested and jailed?

[Astarlessnightsky]

LOL no. Before you discriminate and dehuminze them any further, maybe one should house them and help people before they end up homeless.

[Asker]

I would love to do that but there is no $ for that, of course. Not in the US.

[Astarlessnightsky]

There is enough money for it. Its just in someones pocket who refuses to pay taxes and/or spend on the military.

[Asker]

Unfortunately, you often cannot house people without simultaneously treating their mental illness. Sometimes even before as many are very fearful of being indoors.

[Asker]

In the US, a trillion $ + per year goes to "defense" (really "war") contractors.

[KrakenAttackin]

We need to increase mental health services.

[Asker]

Yes we do but nobody's going to pay for it. People would much rather pay for more punitive things.

[KrakenAttackin]

Unfortunately, our society sees faster "results" by locking people up. I don't know what the answer is but it needs to start with mental health treat

[Asker]

You are right - but - to even get the basic license to provide mental health services takes about 6-7 years of school, full time. It took me 12 + years full time to get an advanced degree and license Not everyone can or wants to do this. It is very expensive.

[KrakenAttackin]

Well, like so many medical professions, does it have to be this long? Have you ever read "Where there is no Doctor" and/or "Where there is no dentist"? The idea is that the majority of medical issues can be handled with a lower but very focused training program. This leaves the more serious issues to the top professionals.

Perhaps a start is a change to medical education and credentialing.

[KrakenAttackin]

Just a thought and not meant to degrade your credentials.

[Asker]

The thing about it is that this is mostly an art and not so much a science and it takes a very long time to learn to be proficient at this art because if you are not then try to do it anyway you can do a hell of a lot of damage very quickly. Some people are really not able to learn to do this at all. So yeah it takes longer than it should probably, but if you shorten it, the outcomes are very bad. Of 100 people that start learning this. I would say at the end about 5 to 10 of them actually can do it and actually get licensed to do it.

[Asker]

This is also part of why it's so expensive.

[KrakenAttackin]

That's makes sense.

[asarjam]

Very few are mentally ill, they are drug addicts or alcoholics. Most of the mental illness comes from these addictions. Everyone has, or had, family. They did not seek help or listen to their admonition. If you don't incarcerate, what is the alternative? Institutionalize them? The public cannot afford it and ultimately rehab rarely prevents them falling back into the same self-destructive habits. Living in a free society means your decisions you have to live with. It's sad in many respects. Go into social work and try to help them. But ultimately the state has a justifiable interest in public order.

[Asker]

@asarjamAnd you know all of this how exactly? You have a lot to say and you provide no evidence that NY of it is true. So please do so, thanks.

[asarjam]

It's a judgment - based on reading, observation, a long life studying the subject matter. But you don't have to agree with it, do your own research and offer an alternative view. I have worked for the Dept. of Human Services in a large city which dealt primarily with child services, but you get the reports of what is happening on the streets. It's not a controversial position - why do we have more "mental health" issues today than say 30 years ago, 50 years ago.

[Asker]

Thanks. I think we don't necessarily have more mental health issues as we did previously as we have higher encounter and reporting rates which artificially drives the numbers up. I think the incidence rate is about the same. We also have a slightly higher treatment rate and a lot of public argument as to how and whether we should provide treatment. As a doctoral-level mental health provider, I am on the pointy end of LPS decisions and how to manage them. Thank you for your DHS work.

[beefcakebradybatson]

The state has a DUTY to the unfortunate, which it has shirked since the Ronne Ray-Guns era, which is why drug abuse, mental illness and other indices of a grotesquely unequal society have soared. A "religious" country as America claims to be, would understand that Jesus said,"What you do to the least of us, you do to me." Seems the selfish "Winner Tale All" ethos which began in the eighties has reached its end, and if Trump mandated debtors' prisons, which flourished in the nineteenth century, his acoytes would willingly accede.

[Asker]

@beefcakebradybatson No argument from me. Conservatives consider mental illness to be the fault of the victim, not of fate or bad luck - until one of their family members gets it.

[beefcakebradybatson]

ConservaSWINE are POS, Asker.

[Asker]

@beefcakebradybatson They are also empathy and understanding and intelligence-deficient. Not to mention being vicious racists.

[Staximus]

I work with homeless people everyday. 80% of them here are drug addicts who just want to lay around and get wasted and not do anything with their life. The other 20% are actually mentally ill and need to be helped.

[Asker]

@staximus What kind of work do you do with the homeless?

[RavVid]

Yes. Drug addiction is a mental illness and it doesn't help these people to permit them to sleep on the street. In my country they can have housing and pay very little for it but prefer to save the $ for every skerrick of drugs they can buy.

Some of them come 2,000 KM to sleep on our streets.

Give them the option of being locked up in jail housing or get off the street into housing. Which one they pick is up to them.

[Asker]

Drug addiction is not a mental illness.

[RavVid]

People claim so locally to garner sympathy. I'm not so sure it isn't. If you are fucked up emotionally you do things to make you feel better. Of course drugs will fuck you up emotionally and mentally so it is a chicken and egg problem.

Same solution though. Lock'em up and get them off the street.

[Asker]

No, I claim so, and I'm qualified and licensed to make that claim. Are you?

[slatyb]

No, but it seems reasonable to require some people to get treatment.

[Asker]

You can require people to get treatment but the research and clinical experiences that when you do this they don't benefit from the treatment even if they go to it. Treatment turns out to require voluntary cooperation and involvement. The truth is that the medicines we have don't work very well if at all and many of them have some very unpleasant side effects which is causes people to avoid them if possible.

[Asker]

So you're not going to solve this with a pill or injection.

[slatyb]

If they are committing criminal acts, or refuse shelter, they shouldn't be allowed to remain on the street to die.

[Asker]

Refusing shelter is not criminal and people have a right to do that. Under certain conditions. You can force them to accept shelter, but those conditions are very limited and temporary.

[slatyb]

If they are committing theft or vandalism or threatening others, we need to get them off the street.

[Asker]

The only way to do that is to arrest them and put them in jail, which may be illegal.

[beefcakebradybatson]

If you're into Fascism, I guess. If not, H**L to the NO !!!

[exitseven]

Yes the public needs to be protected and in some cases it will be in their best interest.

[OddBeMe]

To necessarily. But perhaps forced mental health. Baker act expanded perhaps.

[Asker]

Forced mental health?

[Asker]

We have something here in California called the LPS act which allows for involuntary commitment and other things like that. It is very useful in terms of helping to get people conservators into put them in facilities for short periods of time. But the truth is that even when you do that, the treatment itself is not very effective. Unfortunately. People have to want to get better and recognize a need for treatment before any real movement occurs.

[OddBeMe]

How else do we get mentally ill people help?

[Asker]

If you force it, you're going to be putting people in institutions and when they get there, they're not going to be happy and they're not going to be cooperative and they're not going to benefit.

[Asker]

We need to persuade people that treatment is for their own good and will benefit them. Persuading mentally ill. People of this is often a big task that is not easily accomplished and sometimes not at all. The American way of doing things is to force people to do them and sometimes that'll work, but in this particular case it won't work at all.

[OddBeMe]

Like saving for retirement…there are some things we can’t teach Americans. Men especially have problems with going for a yearly checkup.

[Asker]

true.

[noohair]

So you want to make an illness a crime?

[Asker]

Of course not! It is right now if the homeless person sleeps outside...

[Anonymous]

Turn off that hard right news