Absolutely impeccable journalism. This issue needs a blinding UV spotlight on it until it disinfects the entire situation for good. Finding out where the billions of dollars is going would be worth taking a look at. There are people stuffing their pockets, do doubt. Disgraceful. Need to find out who these people are and expose them for their gross incompetence, and possible fraud. While I understand no one likes to take responsibility in wokesim, they will run out of places to hide.
99% of the time, 5150 is a waste of everyone’s time. The sick person is taken to the Sheriff, or to some sort of “evaluation” facility. Minimal effort is spent trying to figure out what is wrong with the person. There may or may not be even an interview. Most of the time the upshot is that the person is released.
It is an endless revolving door until the person does something seriously criminal. Unless we organize and remove the VOLUNTEER clause, and paste together the best programs into a solid institution that does not get its funding pulled every other year, or cut, then we are all to blame for not seeing that the duopoly has crafted this nightmare over the many many decades now.
When the person in question, probably after many rounds of 5150, does something seriously criminal, chances are that no actual mental health steps will be taken at that point either. The person will be taken to the county jail, where he or she may or may not be classified as mentally ill and receive some sort of drug cocktail, with little or no medical oversight.
If the charge is a serious felony, and it this whole matter ends up before a judge, the results are haphazard at best. If we are talking a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, this will probably produce a genuine physician, perhaps more than one. The results, again however, are haphazard.
Anyone who has worked in any related field has lots of stories.
I had a client whose son, a schizophrenic, tried to murder his parents. He nearly succeeded with the mother. He was adjudged not guilty by reason of insanity, but a few years later he was released. His parents relocated all the way across the country to get away from him. He eventually committed suicide with a legally purchased gun.
You cannot get help for your schizophrenic relatives. I had two friends who tried. They leave it all up to the psychotics free agency.
Bandaids and revolving doors, that is all this gets. My best friend is a probation officer in California. I need few lessons. Police do not need to be handling these cases over and over.
In 1984, a high school friend who could not get into rehab for 10 months for his heroin addiction, so he could get back with his family and children, went home to his grandma, and put a bullet in his head. I have to say, he was the sweetest addict I have ever known. He did, though, kick the habit like he promised -- permanently. There were many other addicts I have known in my life I wish had done the same thing, but not Scott Crawford.
My sister has been 5150d a number of times and each time she ends up 5250d and comes out two weeks later, in her meds and in relatively good shape. After a few months to a year she goes off her meds, does some illegal crazy shit and ends up back in. The last time she ended up in a State Hospital for about three months.
I keep hoping she will decide to stay on her meds. I am keeping her off the streets. There is no magic solution. Institutionalizing 1/2M people is not an answer.
I’m not sure where your 1/2M figure comes from. I would guess that number is pretty close to the number of people who need to be removed from the streets by force if necessary.
I have a mentally ill adult son living on the streets, for many years now. I would “keep him off the streets” if I knew how to do that. Having him live with me is not an answer, not least because he wouldn’t stand for it.
Your sister, from your account, is degrading the conditions of whatever city she lives in (“does some illegal crazy shit”) in addition to costing huge amounts of public money with her revolving-door lifestyle. I certainly don’t want to be around (or be the target!!) when she starts her “crazy shit.” Also her own quality of life sounds pretty iffy.
As you say, there is no magic solution, but there are quite a lot of people, if not 1/2M people, who should be institutionalized. Maybe not your sister, maybe not my son. The guy who jumped my kid and beat him up on the streets of Oakland last week? Yes.
1/2M is my estimate based on the number of mentally ill homeless in America.
I cannot live with my sister, not with me having children in the home. Maybe when they are off to college. She has soured her relationship with almost everyone else in the family though. She is really a destructive person. I don't see any easy answers for someone like that.
I have another step-brother who is mentally ill but finally decided he was sick of living on the streets and has become clean and sober and lives in a halfway house. He will never be a "productive member of society" but at least he is not causing anyone else any harm. I have many siblings -- 11 in all, so I have seen all kind of outcomes in them, from lawyers and nurses to felons who were thrown in prison for selling drugs.
If we stopped wasting money on foreign adventures, we would have plenty to take care of our own people. But it seems like no one is in favor of that.
I don't actually think the problem is that we don't have enough money to make this situation much better. I think the problem is one of will.
I have gradually become more concerned with the welfare of the general population of our cities, and less concerned with the welfare of the homeless. I certainly don't wish them ill, but their presence in many of our cities has made life unlivable for everyone else. Parks and sidewalks are built and maintained as public spaces with public purposes. When they are completely clogged with people camping on them, the purpose for which we instituted them is frustrated. On top of that, disease and lawless behavior is furthered.
Someone who is "really a destructive person" should not be allowed to roam at large, but should be confined safely and humanely for the sake of everyone else.
Immediately after London Breed declared that she would crack down on open drug dealing and drug use, an outcry arose about "the poor drug dealers"! I have run out of sympathy for them.
They have to go somewhere. In the 50s and 60s we built large housing projects for the really poor to live in. Before that, we allowed them to build shantytowns. Short of locking them all up or eliminating them "the poor will always be with us" as Jesus said. And I don't mean just those down on their luck, the hardcore mentally ill who resist any kind of treatment.
The kind of program that Shellenberger talks about, where mental health treatment is available on demand, where drug rehab is available would be very expensive and also require training a whole new cohort of mental health professionals.
I have mental health issues and in spite of being well off and educated, found it difficult to get good treatment and now I pay through the nose for it.
I moved to San Francisco right after college, in January of 1966. We had almost no money - both grad students - and lived in cheap but reasonably decent apartments. Except for a very few drunks on Skid Row, THERE WERE NO HOMELESS ON THE STREETS. I don't know where everybody was, but I'm suspecting flop houses, SROs and the like. Plus asylums of various description for the mentally ill.
Was this ideal? Probably not, I don't know what "ideal" would look like. The streets were much cleaner, and much safer. Was this at the expense of the mentally ill and drug addicts? Quite possibly. When thinking about running a society we must be ready to weigh and balance various opposing interests. We are doing this now, of course, but in my opinion the balance has gone too far towards protecting the "freedom" of criminals and the mentally ill. (Oddly, this seems also to include a real difficulty in finding and paying for mental health care, as you point out.) I would like to see the balance tip back a bit towards law abiding families and the reasonably mentally well.
It is probable, as you say, that taking responsible care of the mentally ill will cost a lot of money. I suggest that this would be money well spent.
We could easily decommission some military institutions and convert them for any need, IMO. I hear Ben Carson, just before Covid hit, was out in California to talk with Gavin with an ultimatum. The Feds would gut loose with some military property to solve the homeless crisis. Then, nothing happened. I was quite excited, but Trump has little follow-through on anything, your usual politician!!
Families cannot be expected to deal with such destructive behaviors. They need controlled environments, special housing tailor made for their dysfunctions. I can guarantee it would be less costly than what we are doing now. I will remind, as much as we rail against just the Libs on this, the Libertarians in my community are the ones who are advocating they live wild and free to do what they want, even burn down the forests if they want to.
The town I grew up in had a large mental hospital where many people like this were kept safe and comfortable. The hospital was a source pride to the community. People from the town worked there and many others volunteered either individually or through groups like the Nights of Columbus. I visited people there often and was a sad place to go, but at the time it was the best alternative for people who could not function in normal society. Sometime in the early 80s they began releasing the people and they immediately became homeless and living in the streets of the downtown area. Not only did it destroy the people but it ruined the downtown area as well. Within a short time, people started avoiding the area and the shops that lined the streets soon began to close. Families that had owned businesses for two or three generations had to close their shops and find other work. The area became run down with empty lots and buildings where the homeless lived and even today the city suffers from what happened almost 40 years ago despite every attempt to revitalize the area.
The hospital with its dozens of beautiful late 19th and early 20th century architecture sits empty and rotting.
This was all the result of progressive activism; they closed these hospitals down.
We too had such a facility, just not as grand. Closed 25 years ago because of provincial budget deficits expanded beyond manageability by our feds getting rid of theirs.
The progressives were happy to see it go as it was, yes, old and not up to "standards", but more importantly for their pangs of guilt, those inside that weren't considered an immediate danger onto themselves or others would now be set free to live amongst us and be "normalized" as members of our community. "It was the right thing to do."
Aside watching as you have what the unmasked true feelings of society, NIMBYism in its pure form does with the degradation of our downtown core, because of my direct experience as a property manager I get to ask today's social workers who so much more than their fore bearers embrace these illogical constructs, the following question about an ex tenant of mine, a schizophrenic:
Please explain to me again how is she better off living off in the streets, cold and hungry, because no owner will give her a home because she has issues that will cross the threshold that would prevent them from "providing quiet enjoyment" to their other tenant's, instead of being inside an antiquated, pale lavender coloured, bedded, four walled room getting medical care 24/7 and three squares a day?
These were the arguments Mark Vonnegut would make when Gov Reagan started the great dismantling which also continued under his Presidency. We have to understand, the great privatization of American, the greatest military power on the planet, also applies to healthcare. There is no money in it.
There was a 60 minutes in early 80s about Chicago. After so many years of post Nam War stagnflation, it was a mess. Reagan's campaign promises were very loud and clear. He was going to fix Chicago and other Urban crisis areas. He did NOTHING, 60 minutes showed every detail of that NOTHING. Later, Jack Kemp designed and presented several Urban plans, of course, based on privatization and the predatory instinct. They did not pan out very much. I invite you to watch ROGER AND ME, about Flint Michigan, by a progressive I am sure you will blame for everything. GM abandoned Flint. What that Moore's fault? Maybe I am missing something. He also did later a movie called SICKO, which exposed the FOR PROFIT medical and pharma sector for what it is. Did progressives cause that too? Please explain.
Oh, and do not miss the follow up movie to Roger and Me. Both films are eye opening. But, it does not prove what you want it to prove, that progressives are to blame for everything that happened 30-40 years ago, the very time privatization extremism went into overdrive to gut America and consolidate wealth into the hands of a few.
No, this is the result of privatization extremism. Boom-and-bust economy destroy communities, as does greater centralization and gutting of infrastructure amenities so opportunitistic private predatory monied interests can reap the rewards. If Covid did not teach us a lesson on how this predatory system works, I guess nothing well. Your argument, for me, that actual progressives 40 years ago, when Reagan was President, knowing what I know, holds no water. They began releasing the people because this was Reagan's plan to save money and privatize, cut spending, and boy he did, for Raygun's arms race. These releases began when Reagan was CA governor, not matter how much people like Mark Vonnegut protest and wrote articles for the papers.
''The professional community made mistakes and was overly optimistic, but the political community wanted to save money.'' [and it was not a MONEY MAKER]
Anything that would cut costs, and gut the infrastructure, he did not care who sold it to him. Bottom line is all that mattered. ACLU will sell you kiddie porn and pedophiles, Nazis, and whatever. We know who they are.
I never said it was not complicated, and i never said ever that it was only Reagan. where did I say that? I am well aware how the Left failed us against the bulwark of McCarthyism and rampant commercialism, and certainly do not believe ROSE BIRD caused ALL our problems, or that they only started and ended with Reagan, but 40 years ago we did take a huge huge McCarthyite backlash throwing us back into the Cold War overnight, and it was costly needless rubbish that set us up for endless wars. Pendulum swings, blowback after blowback, rich get richer, wars never end.
You never said it was not complicated, but blaming Reagan and budgets only make you sound like it you think it is. The psychiatric community was just as responsible, if not more so, than any politician. Thier arrogance and over confidence drove the whole movement.
ACLU is a joke. The group that defended Nazis, pedophiles, and porn, and now tries to book itself of some sort of progressive powerhouse and curling up with IDpol. Old school progressives abandoned them a long long time ago.
Just say NO TO DRUGS, Jeff! Is that complicated enough for you? Funding slashed. Centralization. Gutting our cities and towns. That was the Reagan answer while he poured trillions into war and abandoned the urban crisis. Even Kemp was at odds with him.
They WANT the successful programs to fail. They do not want strong communities. Get it? They like the failed sickening ones because they can use it as proof to return too primitive bootstrap mentalities. I have been watching this over 50 years. It is very simplistic to think GOP=All good, Left=all bad. And I am not a member of the duopoly, have not been since 1980. You have recrafted a narrative that paints GOP as angels. None of them are. We have backlash pendulum swinging system and is a big ZERO on social problems because there is NO MONEY IN IT. They tried to make it a money maker, and they will continue. Virtue signaling is just a sales pitch for corporate sponsors and donors wanting to look less predatory or parasitic. WHo do you think hands out the grants? This is commercial culture, the one you were loving when GW Bush was bombing Iraq.
The hospitals were closed because of one stupid book and one stupid movie. The book: The Myth of Mental Illness, by Thomas Szasz. The movie: One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, starring Jack Nicholson. When anybody talks about the "bad old days", those two are invariably the reference points they mention.
A friend of mind used to talk about the addicts, criminals, homeless, etc. that we leave on the street as the SHOCK TROOPS. If you think about it, it does sell a lot of guns. It is like a war front, and our leaders, right or left, know they are doing this to our communities to disempower us.
I hear you. Sigh. How about earlier, THE SNAKE PIT? The thing is, there is MENTAL ILLNESS and MENTAL ILLNESS, they are not all alike. Simple, psychotics and addicts, or the seriously personality disordered with addiction issues, are the ones who turn up homeless or wrecking the lives of others. So now, everyone who suffers non-destructive mental illnesses, are all offended if you talk about any proper intervention, like the straight jackets are coming for them. Hell, i have serious PTSD, but I am not psychotic. I have not straight jacket fears. But if I did have a moment where my diminished capacity was serious enough to not leave me to my own agency, damn, you bet I want help!! WHat is wrong with this picture?
"What, then, is going on? Why are progressives, who say they care so much about black lives, sacrificing so many of them?"
Because it's a virtue signal, a pose, a status jockeying stunt, nothing less and nothing more. If you believe one of these progressive liberals, especially the white wealthy ones, you're misguided.
There's a book called "SJW's Always Lie" that goes into this quite well.
Is not it stunning all this complaining that minorities and others traditionally do not vote GOP (unless they are Cubans in Miami)? Like, how could you NOT know why? The party of the wealthy, McCarthy, Cold War, Strom Thurmond, privatization extremism, religious zealotry, on and on. Even Teddy Roosevelt left it.
Damn, leave the duopoly and the polarization, and the labels behind, and do not vote for corporate sponsored candidates that the MSM are paid to promote. Hard to believe that Republicans and others voted such a caricature as Trump. He aspires to live like royalty. It is repulsive. Whose savior is this guy? Irrational reactionary nonsense. Time to LEAVE the DUOPOLY, think outside the box.
I do not understand what you mean in this sentence, but once the Cato Institute did a full study, and the conclusion was that the GOP were the BIG SPENDERS contrary to what was thought to be the Democrats. But given they are both full bore war mongers working for the Bush Crime Family, it is all the same, gut the infrastructure of USA for the warlords, leave our communities trashed. Simple formula that has been going on forever.
Our faux left leader are funded by corporate money, by a corporate party. DNC is a FOR PROFIT entity who purchased their media. Just like RNC purchases its propaganda machine. Are you tired of it yet? It is really one big for profit party that loves war.
Black people don't exist for white liberals (mostly because they don't know any), they are not considered or treated as actual people but as SYMBOLS.
For the modern white liberal, black people represent a sort of Platonic Victim, who can never do but only be done to, whose lives and histories are an endless Via Dolorosa, who exist to remind us of the sins of our forefathers and, most especially, of the hateful bigotry of those other Bad Whites over there. They are both Jesus and the Christian martyrs, the suffering servant all Good Whites know to include in their prayers.
For white liberals black people exist first and foremost as a weapon to wield against their political opponents (I care about them much more than you do, bigot!) and also as a social signal that serves the same purpose as a crucifix: to let others know you represent the side of the Good.
Essentially, white liberals have sacralized black Americans and their history and their suffering, so any actual realities or empirical policies are either secondary or nonexistent; what matters first and foremost is the public worshipping (mouthing the proper pieties and prayers), aka being a member in good standing of the Woke Church.
I’m afraid the past decades have made me very cynical. My take on this horror show is that if they actually fixed what’s so obviously broken and helped these poor people, the money spigot would not flow as freely and graft and money laundering would be severely impacted. Can’t have that!
Another great piece, Michael. For some further insights on the nexus between tax-exempt foundations and non-profits in terms of shifting policy regarding the formerly-institutionalized, this is an interesting piece from a few years back --
All this seems to be an indirect way of saying that the blame for the human wreckage that deinstitutionalization left in its wake lies not with the public interest lawyers (or ACLU) who, admittedly, didn’t weigh “the unintended consequences” of their intended goals. Rather, it rests on the heads of elected officials, for both their apathy towards the noble aspirations of the public interest bar and their indifference to the mentally ill, given that population’s lack of political clout. (like I say, there is NO MONEY IN IT. Mentally ill and addicts do not have lobbyists). Our local Libertarians are convinced the addict and mentally ill should be allowed to live free in the wild! Closer look, one notes these are pro drug advocates, who, seem perhaps a bit unhinged themselves.) I have concluded that drugs, sex, and rock and roll did not serve us very well, and it was there where the Libertarian platforms infiltrated the left domain, or syphoned off many of the groovy people.
The Wyatt litigation was also significant in giving birth to the Mental Health Law Project (now known as the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law)…. It became the ideological fulcrum of the mental health bar, further restricting involuntary treatment and creating and expanding the right to refuse treatment (emphasis added).
It is quite interesting as neolibs have many abandoning the typical left terrain of anti-war and real life basics, that the academic conservatives are now adopting them in some table turning deal. I discovered that one of my all time favorite writers is now extremely popular among conservative academics. Christopher Lasch. Anyone remember him? So wish he were still alive. We know what the problems are, and even the real life solutions. Our obsticle is our IDEOLOGIES and IDENTITY conflicts and addiction to polarization. I used to call it the "pursuit of specialness" -- Something I think I extrapolated from Culture of Narcissism so long ago.
Great piece. in 70s i was getting my degrees in Social Sciences. We debated this trend. It was not thought of very highly among progressives, and Mark Vonnegut, who later became a Doctor, condemned for very good solid reasons. We knew it was all about cost cutting. Then, later, came Ronnie, with his continued deregulation mania and privatization extremism. The great corporate cannibalizing of America. This is the fallout. Mark Vonnegut warned in 70s, no one listened. The only voices that would be heard were those who would benefit corporate leaders and fit the plan. Having mentally ill and addicts on the street is politically useful and saves money.
Deinstitutionalism was the worst brainchild ever. As I mentioned before, Mark Vonnegut was a very active critic of this new "Libertarian" trend back in... i think 1970.
I think if you strip away all the motion around the issue (and soooo many others in society) enacted by pols on down to the bureaucracies et al, and examine the human, psychological motives underlying their behaviour you are left with the conclusion that these solutions are first and foremost about them and what they need to feel, and not what the victims feel and need to get better.
Only when those that are in control grow up will real solutions be enacted and the problem solved.
Minneapolis MN in 2020, 4 out of 5 homicide victims were black. Minneapolis MN in 2021, 4 out of 5 homicide victims are black. The black population is 1 out of 5 Minneapolis residents.
As to who commits these murders, it is the same as it always has been. Well over 90% of black homicides are committed by black people. This fact and many more can be found in the Uniform Crime Report put out annually by the FBI. The report is available at https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr.
As to are they male or female, the large majority are male, with relative youth another characteristic. In Minneapolis (a/k/a Murderapolis) in 2020, black males represented 73.1% of all homicide victims. Black women were 7.7% of all homicide victims. Blacks comprised 80.8% of homicides victims or “4 out of 5”. Looking at categories of “race” in the statistics, homicides is a black male issue. Black males were 8 times more likely to be a victim of homicide than their underlying representation in the population of Minneapolis.
While black female homicides were underrepresented in the 2020 statistics, it is the killing of 2 black women that stands out for me. Their names are Laneesha Columbus (age 27) and Leneesha Columbus (age 4-weeks). Laneesha’s death was homicide by gunshot, while Leneesha’s death was ruled homicide by maternal trauma. They died on July 5 and August 5, respectively. As for who committed the murders, that is Zachary Robinson. Robinson had been arrested in December 2019 for shooting a man outside a downtown bar. He was not in jail in January 2020 when he got Laneesha Columbus pregnant. On July 5, Robinson and Columbus had a fight. A bystander tried to intervene and Robinson shot the man. Columbus took the opportunity to try and escape in her vehicle. Robinson shot Columbus and she would go on to die from the wound. Leneesha Columbus would be born premature that day, but die a month later.
In Minneapolis in 2021, the number of black male homicide victims would increase by 10%. However, as the result of a larger overall increase in homicides, they would make up only 69.2% of all homicides. An increase in homicides of black females resulted in 8.8% of homicide victims for a total of 78.0%, or again my “4 out of 5” comment. According to Census.gov, the 2021 population of Minneapolis was 19.8% black, or again my “1 out of 5” comment.
I use homicides as determined by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner as released at this website https://www.hennepin.us/me. The ME is supposed to be the most independent part of the justice process. Their determinations of homicide will typically be lower than the Minneapolis Police Department. An example would be the death of 3-month old D’Juan Duprea Anderson on 12/14/2020. While the ME manner of death is listed as “pending”, charges of Manslaughter in the Second Degree were brought in the case.
These are the homicide victims only. On October 5, 2020, there was an accident that killed three black males as the result of an alleged carjacking. The victims were Demetrius Dobbins (age 16), Jamontae Welch (age 15) and Cortez Williams (age 13).
I started tracking this data after I saw an exchange between a black man and a black woman on television. The black woman was a young PhD, with a position at Johns Hopkins University. The black man asked her when a conversation about black-on-black crime could enter into the conversation. In reply, the black woman said 2 things. First, in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, it was not the time for that conversation. I have been alive for more than a few decades. It has never been that time. Second, she said that white people kill too. That is absolutely true. In 2020, white males represented 5.1% of all homicide victims. There were zero white female homicides that year.
After a relatively miserable winter, a 9-year old black male was asked if he had been able to go outside the day before to enjoy the first nice day of 1992 in NYC. He replied that his mother did not let him go outside. That the park across the street from their Harlem apartment had dangerous people in it. He then added that a gunshot had gone through their apartment window. Let me ask you, when do we do something to save these young people?
The timeline here (from KQED, not exactly a right-wing news outlet) shows that it was not Reagan's fault as governor or president. The state bill he signed had the support of Democrats and Republicans, as well as the ACLU; it was considered a step forward for patients' rights. As president, Reagan returned control and responsibility for managing mental health issues to the states. In California, the Democrats have held both houses of the state legislature and the governor's office for decades, and things have only gotten worse. https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here
"1967 Ronald Reagan is elected governor of California. At this point, the number of patients in state hospitals had fallen to 22,000, and the Reagan administration uses the decline as a reason to make cuts to the Department of Mental Hygiene. They cut 2,600 jobs and 10 percent of the budget despite reports showing that hospitals were already below recommended staffing levels.
1967 Reagan signs the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act and ends the practice of institutionalizing patients against their will, or for indefinite amounts of time. This law is regarded by some as a “patient’s bill of rights”. Sadly, the care outside state hospitals was inadequate. The year after the law goes into effect, a study shows the number of mentally ill people entering San Mateo's criminal justice system doubles."
I believe a governor is PERSONALLY responsible for every bill he/she signs.
If the halfway houses had been built by, say, another term of Pat Brown as Governor, Rose Bird would have emptied them. The whole "involuntary confinement' trip covers halfway houses too... not just inpatient treatment.
You did not read what I said. I said IF Pat Brown had served a term or terms that Ronald Reagan served in our history. Rose Bird is the central figure in the mental health catastrophe we are suffering. She is the central figure in a lot of what is wrong with California… not by coincidence, because she was a radical who affected normality.
Barack Obama took lessons to become that… his buddy the “former” Weather Underground terrorist took him from neighborhood organizer that consorted with violent racist African-American leaders (like the pastor of the church he still belonged to in 2008) to POTUS. He fooled a whole bunch of Democrats all of the time, but he didn’t fool Republicans… any more than Rose Bird did.
John. I know exactly Who Rose Bird is, and still find it difficult to make the connection of Pat in 1966, to her more than 10 years later, much after Raygun had began this great dismantling, which, BTW, he stayed committed to throughout his presidency. Bird was a reckless idiot, but using her as sole central instigator and scapegoat fails to see the bigger picture. Please see my post about Reagan's great belief in the philanthropic sector, privatization, and the gutting of america.
There is enough blame to go around, but it is Reagan who emptied mentally ill on the street and gutted and abandoned the institutions for support for addiction and mental illness. Mark Vonnegut wrote scathing pieces back in the day when it all was coming down and Reagan was Governor. Do you want me to find one? I dug one up once years ago. Between GOP and Neolibs/Republicrats, all owned by corporations who benefit from privatization extremism and gutting our infrastructure, have continued the dismantling. The argument should be, why are these people left to their own agency, why is treatment only on a VOLUNTEER basis, leaving families and communities no way to find appropriate treatment or institutions to protect and care for their own. The can just keeps getting kicked down the road again and again.
Be specific. How? How are the courts Leftist and how has the privatization of every thing since WWII served us so well? For most part, addiction and mental illness have been criminalized, but why are so few calling it for what it is? We need to remove the VOLUNTEER clause. Where do you see anyone organizing around this cause? I will be the first to join.
Exactly, in a nutshell. But as well, as we have not had any FDR democrats for many decades now, this new class of Neoliberals are very very much into privatization extremism and war, and really, other than some IDpol fake rivalries, have little separating them.
To Democrats black lives matter only when they can be politically exploited (i.e police or white supremacist shootings). Black livelihoods don't matter at all to Democrats, they'd rather blame the 1% for all the economic hardships that black people face than admit their own policies have failed. Black peoples educations don't matter at all to Democrats either, the money that they get from teachers unions does which is why Democrats oppose school choice despite the fact that most black people want their kids out of bad schools. The Democrat Party has exploited black people since its inception, it just has them on a different kind of plantation today that keeps them dependent on the government as much as possible without actually helping them to get ahead.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for doing this. You are truly a blessing to this world. Two people a day dieing of OD on the streets of SF is a crime against humanity. These people need help!
Before you go on and on being an apologist for Ronny Raygun. Consider this piece of history. When he first became president, he announced he believed that all social services should be handled through philanthropies or privatized. To that, he committed to dismantling our infrastructure to further advance this privatization. I recommend a new book called THE PRIVATIZATION OF EVERYTHING.
I remember this because at the time I published a small progressive news rag. Reagan was the laughing stock of progressives. One source did an investigation to see just how much Reagan himself, theis guy who heralded philanthropy as the solution to every problem. Guess what they discovered? Near NOTHING.
His VP G. Bush would continue this form of virtue-signaling. He started a nonprofit called Points of Light. Aryanna Huffington was put in charge of fund raising. She eventually quit and later blew the whistle. Republicans, she said, have little to no interest in philanthropy. Soon after she joined the Democratic party, as if that would solve the problem, but if you knew her issues with her ex-husband, a GOP Senator, maybe it makes more sense. She went on to publish the Huffington Post.
didn’t mention any ONE party as solely responsible... did start with Reagan de-institutionalization ... public sentiment with Hollywood portrayal of facilities ‘One Flew Over Cookoos Nest’... State Mental Hospital now CA State University Channel Islands... ongoing downhill action, with liberal policies plunging us to hitting bottom where we find ourselves now
I find that highly Libertarian folk and IDpol anarcho types tend glorify the freedumb of the mentially ill and addict, his rights to live FREE, etc. You are right the outdated vision of mental institutions being snake pits and drug pushers, and even castration agents, seems to still loom in the imagination of many of these ideologues. I just tell them why not then just make treatment and drugs by consent, but still require containment to protect those who should never be left to their own agency. Yes, my best friend has a brother who is schizophrenic. These stories infuriate me. Yes, my friend and I are PROGRESSIVES. I agree we have a faux left and neoliberal class, but in my town, we see mostly the Libertarian anarcho types who take FREEDUMB to an extreme who are promoting this notion fanatically that addicts and mentally ill need to Live in the Wild Free not matter what. You cannot argue with these nuts. I tried to say, well, when my mom had alzheimers and ran away, then i should have just let her live in the wild? Of course, this one guy tried to just brush that off. they have designed sort of co-living arrangements that have proven to be very sucessful. We are not living in Snake Pits, shock therapy, or Cuckoo's Next any more. Yeah, maybe there are still a few around, but it does not need to be.
This defense is very much tied up with the eve-growing drug cult, who also view drug use with mental health issues and do not want anyone imposing on them or questioning their mental health. I am afraid we have literally allowed the mentally ill and addicted to be run the streets and our communities. This has been slowly growing around us, not matter how much i publicly try to inform people it is disempowering us, it is destroying our communities. I know if I got so severely out of it, I would want a loved one I trusted to insure I got the protection, security and guidance I needed. Families have no power to do this. They were stripped of that.
Absolutely impeccable journalism. This issue needs a blinding UV spotlight on it until it disinfects the entire situation for good. Finding out where the billions of dollars is going would be worth taking a look at. There are people stuffing their pockets, do doubt. Disgraceful. Need to find out who these people are and expose them for their gross incompetence, and possible fraud. While I understand no one likes to take responsibility in wokesim, they will run out of places to hide.
99% of the time, 5150 is a waste of everyone’s time. The sick person is taken to the Sheriff, or to some sort of “evaluation” facility. Minimal effort is spent trying to figure out what is wrong with the person. There may or may not be even an interview. Most of the time the upshot is that the person is released.
It is an endless revolving door until the person does something seriously criminal. Unless we organize and remove the VOLUNTEER clause, and paste together the best programs into a solid institution that does not get its funding pulled every other year, or cut, then we are all to blame for not seeing that the duopoly has crafted this nightmare over the many many decades now.
When the person in question, probably after many rounds of 5150, does something seriously criminal, chances are that no actual mental health steps will be taken at that point either. The person will be taken to the county jail, where he or she may or may not be classified as mentally ill and receive some sort of drug cocktail, with little or no medical oversight.
If the charge is a serious felony, and it this whole matter ends up before a judge, the results are haphazard at best. If we are talking a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, this will probably produce a genuine physician, perhaps more than one. The results, again however, are haphazard.
Anyone who has worked in any related field has lots of stories.
I had a client whose son, a schizophrenic, tried to murder his parents. He nearly succeeded with the mother. He was adjudged not guilty by reason of insanity, but a few years later he was released. His parents relocated all the way across the country to get away from him. He eventually committed suicide with a legally purchased gun.
You cannot get help for your schizophrenic relatives. I had two friends who tried. They leave it all up to the psychotics free agency.
Bandaids and revolving doors, that is all this gets. My best friend is a probation officer in California. I need few lessons. Police do not need to be handling these cases over and over.
In 1984, a high school friend who could not get into rehab for 10 months for his heroin addiction, so he could get back with his family and children, went home to his grandma, and put a bullet in his head. I have to say, he was the sweetest addict I have ever known. He did, though, kick the habit like he promised -- permanently. There were many other addicts I have known in my life I wish had done the same thing, but not Scott Crawford.
My sister has been 5150d a number of times and each time she ends up 5250d and comes out two weeks later, in her meds and in relatively good shape. After a few months to a year she goes off her meds, does some illegal crazy shit and ends up back in. The last time she ended up in a State Hospital for about three months.
I keep hoping she will decide to stay on her meds. I am keeping her off the streets. There is no magic solution. Institutionalizing 1/2M people is not an answer.
I’m not sure where your 1/2M figure comes from. I would guess that number is pretty close to the number of people who need to be removed from the streets by force if necessary.
I have a mentally ill adult son living on the streets, for many years now. I would “keep him off the streets” if I knew how to do that. Having him live with me is not an answer, not least because he wouldn’t stand for it.
Your sister, from your account, is degrading the conditions of whatever city she lives in (“does some illegal crazy shit”) in addition to costing huge amounts of public money with her revolving-door lifestyle. I certainly don’t want to be around (or be the target!!) when she starts her “crazy shit.” Also her own quality of life sounds pretty iffy.
As you say, there is no magic solution, but there are quite a lot of people, if not 1/2M people, who should be institutionalized. Maybe not your sister, maybe not my son. The guy who jumped my kid and beat him up on the streets of Oakland last week? Yes.
1/2M is my estimate based on the number of mentally ill homeless in America.
I cannot live with my sister, not with me having children in the home. Maybe when they are off to college. She has soured her relationship with almost everyone else in the family though. She is really a destructive person. I don't see any easy answers for someone like that.
I have another step-brother who is mentally ill but finally decided he was sick of living on the streets and has become clean and sober and lives in a halfway house. He will never be a "productive member of society" but at least he is not causing anyone else any harm. I have many siblings -- 11 in all, so I have seen all kind of outcomes in them, from lawyers and nurses to felons who were thrown in prison for selling drugs.
If we stopped wasting money on foreign adventures, we would have plenty to take care of our own people. But it seems like no one is in favor of that.
I don't actually think the problem is that we don't have enough money to make this situation much better. I think the problem is one of will.
I have gradually become more concerned with the welfare of the general population of our cities, and less concerned with the welfare of the homeless. I certainly don't wish them ill, but their presence in many of our cities has made life unlivable for everyone else. Parks and sidewalks are built and maintained as public spaces with public purposes. When they are completely clogged with people camping on them, the purpose for which we instituted them is frustrated. On top of that, disease and lawless behavior is furthered.
Someone who is "really a destructive person" should not be allowed to roam at large, but should be confined safely and humanely for the sake of everyone else.
Immediately after London Breed declared that she would crack down on open drug dealing and drug use, an outcry arose about "the poor drug dealers"! I have run out of sympathy for them.
They have to go somewhere. In the 50s and 60s we built large housing projects for the really poor to live in. Before that, we allowed them to build shantytowns. Short of locking them all up or eliminating them "the poor will always be with us" as Jesus said. And I don't mean just those down on their luck, the hardcore mentally ill who resist any kind of treatment.
The kind of program that Shellenberger talks about, where mental health treatment is available on demand, where drug rehab is available would be very expensive and also require training a whole new cohort of mental health professionals.
I have mental health issues and in spite of being well off and educated, found it difficult to get good treatment and now I pay through the nose for it.
I moved to San Francisco right after college, in January of 1966. We had almost no money - both grad students - and lived in cheap but reasonably decent apartments. Except for a very few drunks on Skid Row, THERE WERE NO HOMELESS ON THE STREETS. I don't know where everybody was, but I'm suspecting flop houses, SROs and the like. Plus asylums of various description for the mentally ill.
Was this ideal? Probably not, I don't know what "ideal" would look like. The streets were much cleaner, and much safer. Was this at the expense of the mentally ill and drug addicts? Quite possibly. When thinking about running a society we must be ready to weigh and balance various opposing interests. We are doing this now, of course, but in my opinion the balance has gone too far towards protecting the "freedom" of criminals and the mentally ill. (Oddly, this seems also to include a real difficulty in finding and paying for mental health care, as you point out.) I would like to see the balance tip back a bit towards law abiding families and the reasonably mentally well.
It is probable, as you say, that taking responsible care of the mentally ill will cost a lot of money. I suggest that this would be money well spent.
We could easily decommission some military institutions and convert them for any need, IMO. I hear Ben Carson, just before Covid hit, was out in California to talk with Gavin with an ultimatum. The Feds would gut loose with some military property to solve the homeless crisis. Then, nothing happened. I was quite excited, but Trump has little follow-through on anything, your usual politician!!
Families cannot be expected to deal with such destructive behaviors. They need controlled environments, special housing tailor made for their dysfunctions. I can guarantee it would be less costly than what we are doing now. I will remind, as much as we rail against just the Libs on this, the Libertarians in my community are the ones who are advocating they live wild and free to do what they want, even burn down the forests if they want to.
The town I grew up in had a large mental hospital where many people like this were kept safe and comfortable. The hospital was a source pride to the community. People from the town worked there and many others volunteered either individually or through groups like the Nights of Columbus. I visited people there often and was a sad place to go, but at the time it was the best alternative for people who could not function in normal society. Sometime in the early 80s they began releasing the people and they immediately became homeless and living in the streets of the downtown area. Not only did it destroy the people but it ruined the downtown area as well. Within a short time, people started avoiding the area and the shops that lined the streets soon began to close. Families that had owned businesses for two or three generations had to close their shops and find other work. The area became run down with empty lots and buildings where the homeless lived and even today the city suffers from what happened almost 40 years ago despite every attempt to revitalize the area.
The hospital with its dozens of beautiful late 19th and early 20th century architecture sits empty and rotting.
This was all the result of progressive activism; they closed these hospitals down.
We too had such a facility, just not as grand. Closed 25 years ago because of provincial budget deficits expanded beyond manageability by our feds getting rid of theirs.
The progressives were happy to see it go as it was, yes, old and not up to "standards", but more importantly for their pangs of guilt, those inside that weren't considered an immediate danger onto themselves or others would now be set free to live amongst us and be "normalized" as members of our community. "It was the right thing to do."
Aside watching as you have what the unmasked true feelings of society, NIMBYism in its pure form does with the degradation of our downtown core, because of my direct experience as a property manager I get to ask today's social workers who so much more than their fore bearers embrace these illogical constructs, the following question about an ex tenant of mine, a schizophrenic:
Please explain to me again how is she better off living off in the streets, cold and hungry, because no owner will give her a home because she has issues that will cross the threshold that would prevent them from "providing quiet enjoyment" to their other tenant's, instead of being inside an antiquated, pale lavender coloured, bedded, four walled room getting medical care 24/7 and three squares a day?
Time to return the guilt feeling
These were the arguments Mark Vonnegut would make when Gov Reagan started the great dismantling which also continued under his Presidency. We have to understand, the great privatization of American, the greatest military power on the planet, also applies to healthcare. There is no money in it.
There was a 60 minutes in early 80s about Chicago. After so many years of post Nam War stagnflation, it was a mess. Reagan's campaign promises were very loud and clear. He was going to fix Chicago and other Urban crisis areas. He did NOTHING, 60 minutes showed every detail of that NOTHING. Later, Jack Kemp designed and presented several Urban plans, of course, based on privatization and the predatory instinct. They did not pan out very much. I invite you to watch ROGER AND ME, about Flint Michigan, by a progressive I am sure you will blame for everything. GM abandoned Flint. What that Moore's fault? Maybe I am missing something. He also did later a movie called SICKO, which exposed the FOR PROFIT medical and pharma sector for what it is. Did progressives cause that too? Please explain.
Oh, and do not miss the follow up movie to Roger and Me. Both films are eye opening. But, it does not prove what you want it to prove, that progressives are to blame for everything that happened 30-40 years ago, the very time privatization extremism went into overdrive to gut America and consolidate wealth into the hands of a few.
No, this is the result of privatization extremism. Boom-and-bust economy destroy communities, as does greater centralization and gutting of infrastructure amenities so opportunitistic private predatory monied interests can reap the rewards. If Covid did not teach us a lesson on how this predatory system works, I guess nothing well. Your argument, for me, that actual progressives 40 years ago, when Reagan was President, knowing what I know, holds no water. They began releasing the people because this was Reagan's plan to save money and privatize, cut spending, and boy he did, for Raygun's arms race. These releases began when Reagan was CA governor, not matter how much people like Mark Vonnegut protest and wrote articles for the papers.
It's a lot more complicated than you are making it. The process began in the 1950s and continued long after Reagan left office.
In fact Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Construction Act in October, 1963.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/generalpsychiatry/84796
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-mental-patients-began.html
''The professional community made mistakes and was overly optimistic, but the political community wanted to save money.'' [and it was not a MONEY MAKER]
Anything that would cut costs, and gut the infrastructure, he did not care who sold it to him. Bottom line is all that mattered. ACLU will sell you kiddie porn and pedophiles, Nazis, and whatever. We know who they are.
I read those articles long ago.
I never said it was not complicated, and i never said ever that it was only Reagan. where did I say that? I am well aware how the Left failed us against the bulwark of McCarthyism and rampant commercialism, and certainly do not believe ROSE BIRD caused ALL our problems, or that they only started and ended with Reagan, but 40 years ago we did take a huge huge McCarthyite backlash throwing us back into the Cold War overnight, and it was costly needless rubbish that set us up for endless wars. Pendulum swings, blowback after blowback, rich get richer, wars never end.
You never said it was not complicated, but blaming Reagan and budgets only make you sound like it you think it is. The psychiatric community was just as responsible, if not more so, than any politician. Thier arrogance and over confidence drove the whole movement.
You are dead on - matter of fact the ACLU is a huge part of the problem.
I disliked them then, dislike them now.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/01/30/the-aclu-reverses-course-once-again-in-the-interest-of-wokeness/
ACLU is a joke. The group that defended Nazis, pedophiles, and porn, and now tries to book itself of some sort of progressive powerhouse and curling up with IDpol. Old school progressives abandoned them a long long time ago.
Just say NO TO DRUGS, Jeff! Is that complicated enough for you? Funding slashed. Centralization. Gutting our cities and towns. That was the Reagan answer while he poured trillions into war and abandoned the urban crisis. Even Kemp was at odds with him.
They WANT the successful programs to fail. They do not want strong communities. Get it? They like the failed sickening ones because they can use it as proof to return too primitive bootstrap mentalities. I have been watching this over 50 years. It is very simplistic to think GOP=All good, Left=all bad. And I am not a member of the duopoly, have not been since 1980. You have recrafted a narrative that paints GOP as angels. None of them are. We have backlash pendulum swinging system and is a big ZERO on social problems because there is NO MONEY IN IT. They tried to make it a money maker, and they will continue. Virtue signaling is just a sales pitch for corporate sponsors and donors wanting to look less predatory or parasitic. WHo do you think hands out the grants? This is commercial culture, the one you were loving when GW Bush was bombing Iraq.
The hospitals were closed because of one stupid book and one stupid movie. The book: The Myth of Mental Illness, by Thomas Szasz. The movie: One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, starring Jack Nicholson. When anybody talks about the "bad old days", those two are invariably the reference points they mention.
A friend of mind used to talk about the addicts, criminals, homeless, etc. that we leave on the street as the SHOCK TROOPS. If you think about it, it does sell a lot of guns. It is like a war front, and our leaders, right or left, know they are doing this to our communities to disempower us.
I hear you. Sigh. How about earlier, THE SNAKE PIT? The thing is, there is MENTAL ILLNESS and MENTAL ILLNESS, they are not all alike. Simple, psychotics and addicts, or the seriously personality disordered with addiction issues, are the ones who turn up homeless or wrecking the lives of others. So now, everyone who suffers non-destructive mental illnesses, are all offended if you talk about any proper intervention, like the straight jackets are coming for them. Hell, i have serious PTSD, but I am not psychotic. I have not straight jacket fears. But if I did have a moment where my diminished capacity was serious enough to not leave me to my own agency, damn, you bet I want help!! WHat is wrong with this picture?
"What, then, is going on? Why are progressives, who say they care so much about black lives, sacrificing so many of them?"
Because it's a virtue signal, a pose, a status jockeying stunt, nothing less and nothing more. If you believe one of these progressive liberals, especially the white wealthy ones, you're misguided.
There's a book called "SJW's Always Lie" that goes into this quite well.
Why don't Black people vote for Republicans then?
Is not it stunning all this complaining that minorities and others traditionally do not vote GOP (unless they are Cubans in Miami)? Like, how could you NOT know why? The party of the wealthy, McCarthy, Cold War, Strom Thurmond, privatization extremism, religious zealotry, on and on. Even Teddy Roosevelt left it.
Damn, leave the duopoly and the polarization, and the labels behind, and do not vote for corporate sponsored candidates that the MSM are paid to promote. Hard to believe that Republicans and others voted such a caricature as Trump. He aspires to live like royalty. It is repulsive. Whose savior is this guy? Irrational reactionary nonsense. Time to LEAVE the DUOPOLY, think outside the box.
Because Republicans don't do as much money for nothing.
I do not understand what you mean in this sentence, but once the Cato Institute did a full study, and the conclusion was that the GOP were the BIG SPENDERS contrary to what was thought to be the Democrats. But given they are both full bore war mongers working for the Bush Crime Family, it is all the same, gut the infrastructure of USA for the warlords, leave our communities trashed. Simple formula that has been going on forever.
Our faux left leader are funded by corporate money, by a corporate party. DNC is a FOR PROFIT entity who purchased their media. Just like RNC purchases its propaganda machine. Are you tired of it yet? It is really one big for profit party that loves war.
Black people don't exist for white liberals (mostly because they don't know any), they are not considered or treated as actual people but as SYMBOLS.
For the modern white liberal, black people represent a sort of Platonic Victim, who can never do but only be done to, whose lives and histories are an endless Via Dolorosa, who exist to remind us of the sins of our forefathers and, most especially, of the hateful bigotry of those other Bad Whites over there. They are both Jesus and the Christian martyrs, the suffering servant all Good Whites know to include in their prayers.
For white liberals black people exist first and foremost as a weapon to wield against their political opponents (I care about them much more than you do, bigot!) and also as a social signal that serves the same purpose as a crucifix: to let others know you represent the side of the Good.
Essentially, white liberals have sacralized black Americans and their history and their suffering, so any actual realities or empirical policies are either secondary or nonexistent; what matters first and foremost is the public worshipping (mouthing the proper pieties and prayers), aka being a member in good standing of the Woke Church.
See my comment above. This issue I point out is because everything is seen through the lens of race.
I’m afraid the past decades have made me very cynical. My take on this horror show is that if they actually fixed what’s so obviously broken and helped these poor people, the money spigot would not flow as freely and graft and money laundering would be severely impacted. Can’t have that!
Another great piece, Michael. For some further insights on the nexus between tax-exempt foundations and non-profits in terms of shifting policy regarding the formerly-institutionalized, this is an interesting piece from a few years back --
https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-edna-mcconnell-clark-foundation-administering-strong-shocks-to-u-s-society-and-the-mentally-ill/
All this seems to be an indirect way of saying that the blame for the human wreckage that deinstitutionalization left in its wake lies not with the public interest lawyers (or ACLU) who, admittedly, didn’t weigh “the unintended consequences” of their intended goals. Rather, it rests on the heads of elected officials, for both their apathy towards the noble aspirations of the public interest bar and their indifference to the mentally ill, given that population’s lack of political clout. (like I say, there is NO MONEY IN IT. Mentally ill and addicts do not have lobbyists). Our local Libertarians are convinced the addict and mentally ill should be allowed to live free in the wild! Closer look, one notes these are pro drug advocates, who, seem perhaps a bit unhinged themselves.) I have concluded that drugs, sex, and rock and roll did not serve us very well, and it was there where the Libertarian platforms infiltrated the left domain, or syphoned off many of the groovy people.
The Wyatt litigation was also significant in giving birth to the Mental Health Law Project (now known as the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law)…. It became the ideological fulcrum of the mental health bar, further restricting involuntary treatment and creating and expanding the right to refuse treatment (emphasis added).
It is quite interesting as neolibs have many abandoning the typical left terrain of anti-war and real life basics, that the academic conservatives are now adopting them in some table turning deal. I discovered that one of my all time favorite writers is now extremely popular among conservative academics. Christopher Lasch. Anyone remember him? So wish he were still alive. We know what the problems are, and even the real life solutions. Our obsticle is our IDEOLOGIES and IDENTITY conflicts and addiction to polarization. I used to call it the "pursuit of specialness" -- Something I think I extrapolated from Culture of Narcissism so long ago.
Great piece. in 70s i was getting my degrees in Social Sciences. We debated this trend. It was not thought of very highly among progressives, and Mark Vonnegut, who later became a Doctor, condemned for very good solid reasons. We knew it was all about cost cutting. Then, later, came Ronnie, with his continued deregulation mania and privatization extremism. The great corporate cannibalizing of America. This is the fallout. Mark Vonnegut warned in 70s, no one listened. The only voices that would be heard were those who would benefit corporate leaders and fit the plan. Having mentally ill and addicts on the street is politically useful and saves money.
Deinstitutionalism was the worst brainchild ever. As I mentioned before, Mark Vonnegut was a very active critic of this new "Libertarian" trend back in... i think 1970.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/not-the-whole-person/201704/mark-vonneguts-books-mental-illness
I think if you strip away all the motion around the issue (and soooo many others in society) enacted by pols on down to the bureaucracies et al, and examine the human, psychological motives underlying their behaviour you are left with the conclusion that these solutions are first and foremost about them and what they need to feel, and not what the victims feel and need to get better.
Only when those that are in control grow up will real solutions be enacted and the problem solved.
The answer is four letters: ACLU
Who needs results when you can just virtue signal? The same progressives will chant Stop Asian Hate while advocating policies that harm Asians: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-stop-asian-hate
That is IDpol. It is not "progressive" IMO. It is the faux left, the regressive left.
Minneapolis MN in 2020, 4 out of 5 homicide victims were black. Minneapolis MN in 2021, 4 out of 5 homicide victims are black. The black population is 1 out of 5 Minneapolis residents.
Who commits those murders? Are they male or female. I need real facts and figures.
As to who commits these murders, it is the same as it always has been. Well over 90% of black homicides are committed by black people. This fact and many more can be found in the Uniform Crime Report put out annually by the FBI. The report is available at https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr.
As to are they male or female, the large majority are male, with relative youth another characteristic. In Minneapolis (a/k/a Murderapolis) in 2020, black males represented 73.1% of all homicide victims. Black women were 7.7% of all homicide victims. Blacks comprised 80.8% of homicides victims or “4 out of 5”. Looking at categories of “race” in the statistics, homicides is a black male issue. Black males were 8 times more likely to be a victim of homicide than their underlying representation in the population of Minneapolis.
While black female homicides were underrepresented in the 2020 statistics, it is the killing of 2 black women that stands out for me. Their names are Laneesha Columbus (age 27) and Leneesha Columbus (age 4-weeks). Laneesha’s death was homicide by gunshot, while Leneesha’s death was ruled homicide by maternal trauma. They died on July 5 and August 5, respectively. As for who committed the murders, that is Zachary Robinson. Robinson had been arrested in December 2019 for shooting a man outside a downtown bar. He was not in jail in January 2020 when he got Laneesha Columbus pregnant. On July 5, Robinson and Columbus had a fight. A bystander tried to intervene and Robinson shot the man. Columbus took the opportunity to try and escape in her vehicle. Robinson shot Columbus and she would go on to die from the wound. Leneesha Columbus would be born premature that day, but die a month later.
In Minneapolis in 2021, the number of black male homicide victims would increase by 10%. However, as the result of a larger overall increase in homicides, they would make up only 69.2% of all homicides. An increase in homicides of black females resulted in 8.8% of homicide victims for a total of 78.0%, or again my “4 out of 5” comment. According to Census.gov, the 2021 population of Minneapolis was 19.8% black, or again my “1 out of 5” comment.
I use homicides as determined by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner as released at this website https://www.hennepin.us/me. The ME is supposed to be the most independent part of the justice process. Their determinations of homicide will typically be lower than the Minneapolis Police Department. An example would be the death of 3-month old D’Juan Duprea Anderson on 12/14/2020. While the ME manner of death is listed as “pending”, charges of Manslaughter in the Second Degree were brought in the case.
These are the homicide victims only. On October 5, 2020, there was an accident that killed three black males as the result of an alleged carjacking. The victims were Demetrius Dobbins (age 16), Jamontae Welch (age 15) and Cortez Williams (age 13).
I started tracking this data after I saw an exchange between a black man and a black woman on television. The black woman was a young PhD, with a position at Johns Hopkins University. The black man asked her when a conversation about black-on-black crime could enter into the conversation. In reply, the black woman said 2 things. First, in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, it was not the time for that conversation. I have been alive for more than a few decades. It has never been that time. Second, she said that white people kill too. That is absolutely true. In 2020, white males represented 5.1% of all homicide victims. There were zero white female homicides that year.
After a relatively miserable winter, a 9-year old black male was asked if he had been able to go outside the day before to enjoy the first nice day of 1992 in NYC. He replied that his mother did not let him go outside. That the park across the street from their Harlem apartment had dangerous people in it. He then added that a gunshot had gone through their apartment window. Let me ask you, when do we do something to save these young people?
It's Reagan's fault? Ha! Tells you all you need to know about so-called liberals and progressives.
Shows you have no idea of the history of either California's political history or the history of institutionalization for mental illness in the state.
The timeline here (from KQED, not exactly a right-wing news outlet) shows that it was not Reagan's fault as governor or president. The state bill he signed had the support of Democrats and Republicans, as well as the ACLU; it was considered a step forward for patients' rights. As president, Reagan returned control and responsibility for managing mental health issues to the states. In California, the Democrats have held both houses of the state legislature and the governor's office for decades, and things have only gotten worse. https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here
From your link
"1967 Ronald Reagan is elected governor of California. At this point, the number of patients in state hospitals had fallen to 22,000, and the Reagan administration uses the decline as a reason to make cuts to the Department of Mental Hygiene. They cut 2,600 jobs and 10 percent of the budget despite reports showing that hospitals were already below recommended staffing levels.
1967 Reagan signs the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act and ends the practice of institutionalizing patients against their will, or for indefinite amounts of time. This law is regarded by some as a “patient’s bill of rights”. Sadly, the care outside state hospitals was inadequate. The year after the law goes into effect, a study shows the number of mentally ill people entering San Mateo's criminal justice system doubles."
I believe a governor is PERSONALLY responsible for every bill he/she signs.
If the halfway houses had been built by, say, another term of Pat Brown as Governor, Rose Bird would have emptied them. The whole "involuntary confinement' trip covers halfway houses too... not just inpatient treatment.
Rose Bird did not serve under Pat Brown. Later, Jerry Brown would become Mayor of Oakland and get very tough on crime.
You did not read what I said. I said IF Pat Brown had served a term or terms that Ronald Reagan served in our history. Rose Bird is the central figure in the mental health catastrophe we are suffering. She is the central figure in a lot of what is wrong with California… not by coincidence, because she was a radical who affected normality.
Barack Obama took lessons to become that… his buddy the “former” Weather Underground terrorist took him from neighborhood organizer that consorted with violent racist African-American leaders (like the pastor of the church he still belonged to in 2008) to POTUS. He fooled a whole bunch of Democrats all of the time, but he didn’t fool Republicans… any more than Rose Bird did.
John. I know exactly Who Rose Bird is, and still find it difficult to make the connection of Pat in 1966, to her more than 10 years later, much after Raygun had began this great dismantling, which, BTW, he stayed committed to throughout his presidency. Bird was a reckless idiot, but using her as sole central instigator and scapegoat fails to see the bigger picture. Please see my post about Reagan's great belief in the philanthropic sector, privatization, and the gutting of america.
There is enough blame to go around, but it is Reagan who emptied mentally ill on the street and gutted and abandoned the institutions for support for addiction and mental illness. Mark Vonnegut wrote scathing pieces back in the day when it all was coming down and Reagan was Governor. Do you want me to find one? I dug one up once years ago. Between GOP and Neolibs/Republicrats, all owned by corporations who benefit from privatization extremism and gutting our infrastructure, have continued the dismantling. The argument should be, why are these people left to their own agency, why is treatment only on a VOLUNTEER basis, leaving families and communities no way to find appropriate treatment or institutions to protect and care for their own. The can just keeps getting kicked down the road again and again.
Reagan is a symbol of oppression. The reality is that leftist courts prevent effective treatment for drug addiction and mental illness.
Be specific. How? How are the courts Leftist and how has the privatization of every thing since WWII served us so well? For most part, addiction and mental illness have been criminalized, but why are so few calling it for what it is? We need to remove the VOLUNTEER clause. Where do you see anyone organizing around this cause? I will be the first to join.
Exactly, in a nutshell. But as well, as we have not had any FDR democrats for many decades now, this new class of Neoliberals are very very much into privatization extremism and war, and really, other than some IDpol fake rivalries, have little separating them.
To Democrats black lives matter only when they can be politically exploited (i.e police or white supremacist shootings). Black livelihoods don't matter at all to Democrats, they'd rather blame the 1% for all the economic hardships that black people face than admit their own policies have failed. Black peoples educations don't matter at all to Democrats either, the money that they get from teachers unions does which is why Democrats oppose school choice despite the fact that most black people want their kids out of bad schools. The Democrat Party has exploited black people since its inception, it just has them on a different kind of plantation today that keeps them dependent on the government as much as possible without actually helping them to get ahead.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for doing this. You are truly a blessing to this world. Two people a day dieing of OD on the streets of SF is a crime against humanity. These people need help!
Before you go on and on being an apologist for Ronny Raygun. Consider this piece of history. When he first became president, he announced he believed that all social services should be handled through philanthropies or privatized. To that, he committed to dismantling our infrastructure to further advance this privatization. I recommend a new book called THE PRIVATIZATION OF EVERYTHING.
I remember this because at the time I published a small progressive news rag. Reagan was the laughing stock of progressives. One source did an investigation to see just how much Reagan himself, theis guy who heralded philanthropy as the solution to every problem. Guess what they discovered? Near NOTHING.
His VP G. Bush would continue this form of virtue-signaling. He started a nonprofit called Points of Light. Aryanna Huffington was put in charge of fund raising. She eventually quit and later blew the whistle. Republicans, she said, have little to no interest in philanthropy. Soon after she joined the Democratic party, as if that would solve the problem, but if you knew her issues with her ex-husband, a GOP Senator, maybe it makes more sense. She went on to publish the Huffington Post.
didn’t mention any ONE party as solely responsible... did start with Reagan de-institutionalization ... public sentiment with Hollywood portrayal of facilities ‘One Flew Over Cookoos Nest’... State Mental Hospital now CA State University Channel Islands... ongoing downhill action, with liberal policies plunging us to hitting bottom where we find ourselves now
I find that highly Libertarian folk and IDpol anarcho types tend glorify the freedumb of the mentially ill and addict, his rights to live FREE, etc. You are right the outdated vision of mental institutions being snake pits and drug pushers, and even castration agents, seems to still loom in the imagination of many of these ideologues. I just tell them why not then just make treatment and drugs by consent, but still require containment to protect those who should never be left to their own agency. Yes, my best friend has a brother who is schizophrenic. These stories infuriate me. Yes, my friend and I are PROGRESSIVES. I agree we have a faux left and neoliberal class, but in my town, we see mostly the Libertarian anarcho types who take FREEDUMB to an extreme who are promoting this notion fanatically that addicts and mentally ill need to Live in the Wild Free not matter what. You cannot argue with these nuts. I tried to say, well, when my mom had alzheimers and ran away, then i should have just let her live in the wild? Of course, this one guy tried to just brush that off. they have designed sort of co-living arrangements that have proven to be very sucessful. We are not living in Snake Pits, shock therapy, or Cuckoo's Next any more. Yeah, maybe there are still a few around, but it does not need to be.
This defense is very much tied up with the eve-growing drug cult, who also view drug use with mental health issues and do not want anyone imposing on them or questioning their mental health. I am afraid we have literally allowed the mentally ill and addicted to be run the streets and our communities. This has been slowly growing around us, not matter how much i publicly try to inform people it is disempowering us, it is destroying our communities. I know if I got so severely out of it, I would want a loved one I trusted to insure I got the protection, security and guidance I needed. Families have no power to do this. They were stripped of that.
Among Progressive, not OF progressive. typo
Headline says "Progressives Don't Care For Black Lives"
Content says cops won't 5150 a mentally ill homeless person.
So cops are now progressives?