How We Treat the Mentally Ill In America .... Do we care enough to do better?

Police Beat a Mentally Ill Person or Perhaps a Person High on Meth?

Salinas California.  Police allegedly beat up a mentally ill person.  Police says he was trying to push his mom into the street.  The mom doesn't agree.  Video only catches the part where the police are beating the crap out of him as he rolls around on the street.  Even after about four cops are holding him down, notice that one cop keeps beating his legs.   It is also obvious that the man is resisting arrest and although down on the ground, not helpless.  Police say he grabbed a taser from them and was on "meth".  So, I am not sure this is a good example of how the police handle mentally ill people or someone on drugs.  It would be nice to get the whole story ... but that is probably not going to happen.

 

So, I look for another video from the same police department and found this one ... I am not sure why six police officers can't put the cuffs on this one dude and why they keep hitting and fazering him. I don't know if he is on drugs or mentally ill, but he is obviously not quite with the program.  So, are police properly trained to handle the mentally ill or those on drugs?  This can't be the best they can do.

Guess where the biggest mental health hospital is in the world?

Cook County Jail in Chicago ... At Cook County Jail, an estimated one in three inmates has some form of mental illness. At least 400,000 inmates currently behind bars

in the United States suffer from some type of mental illness—a population larger than the cities of Cleveland, New Orleans, or St. Louis—according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI estimates that between 25 and 40 percent of all mentally ill Americans will be jailed or incarcerated at some point in their lives.

Homeless People, 750,000 of Them ... Most are Mentally Ill

Well, the mentally ill that are not in the jail are on the street ...pushing their shopping carts, trying to find food and in the winter trying not to freeze to death.  

Irony We Only Give Meds to Mentally While in Jail 

While in some jails the mentally ill receive some treatment because of a Supreme court ruling saying it's inhumane not to treat them while in jail.  Because of having their meds they improve and are set free. But, once back on the streets with no ways to get their meds they do without or turn to street drugs and they act out again.  As Gomer Pile used to say, "Surprise, Surprise".

So the Supreme Court ruled it is inhumane not to treat the mentally ill while they are in jail.  Doesn't it follow that it is inhumane not to treat the mentally ill when they are on the streets after getting kicked out of jail?  Duh?  Do we even need the Supreme court to tell us this?

Most  public clinics are hopelessly backlogged and underfunded. Without their meds, the mentally ill are doomed .... they act out and get arrested, see video at the top of this blog.  Yep, that's the full circle, and yes that is America's compassionate plan for caring for the mentally ill.

Let's summarize:

1. Our first plan is to leave the mentally ill on the streets.  Some survive, some die.

2. When the mentally act out, we beat them up and throw them in jail.

3. In jail, we give them meds and therapy.  When they get better, we throw them out with no meds, see 1) above, repeat, repeat.

That's American Compassion!!! ... and why again do we think we are exceptional?  How should we be caring for the mentally ill?  Should our nation offer health care/mental care to all of its citizens, or should we just stick with the current plan of letting them roam the streets?