> In the US, the homeless population exploded, in the 1980s, when they closed down all the mental institutions.

... and for good reason, because it turns out that people with no support network (which most mentally ill people and a lot of prisoners are) are perfect victims for all kinds of abuse - both from other inmates and from "wardens". They didn't end up in an asylum randomly, they ended up in there because their family didn't want or could not provide care for them.

And it's not just mental "health" institutions or prisons... all forms of "care" breed abuse. The Catholic Church for example is still reeling from constant discoveries of abused children in orphanages. Elder care institutions, particularly severely understaffed, routinely have to deal with inmates being injured by anything from a lack of care (e.g. bed sores) over physical abuse to sexual abuse [1].

And to make it worse... private/family care without independent oversight is just as bad. A lot of homeschooled children are heavily abused, caregiver burnout and its fallout is also a nasty issue, and particularly in men with dementia, they can also be the abusers.

In the end, the root problem is that we as a society haven't yet figured out how to properly deal with the balance between care work, employment work and rest, and we also haven't figured out how to properly reward and audit care work.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/06/shock...

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hamdingers 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, the reason was to save tax money by making mental healthcare a personal responsibility instead of a social one. There were many justifications (abuse, new drugs, etc), but the reason was cost.

Abuse was/is a reason to improve controls over abuse and increase funding to improve conditions. It is not a good reason to abandon inpatient care wholesale. Imagine if we had made the same decision about hospitals or schools, both of which engaged in routine abuse in the early 20th century.

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cogman10 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> reason was cost

Yeah, it was supposed to be replaced with a kinder/gentler system, but that never came. They shut down the support system completely with a "we'll figure out how to fix this later" and that never came.

I think the solution is pretty obvious, TBH. Pay people to take care of their family with disabilities. It's often a full time job to take care of someone with a severe disability. Some states do make allowances to pay out to family caregivers, but it's a convoluted system where you have to be employed by a private care agency which is ultimately reimbursed for the care. There's a pointless private business in the way just adding on admin fees.

But there desperately needs to be something in place for people without that support. Parents die/leave/are incarcerated and we really don't have any sort of system setup to handle that.

	▲	michaelt 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I think the solution is pretty obvious, TBH. Pay people to take care of their family with disabilities. Maybe, but we do also need a way to deal with people whose problems can’t be managed in a family setting. If a person is prone to violent meltdowns with little provocation, or can’t help but steal from their family to feed an addiction, family caregivers aren’t going to be enough.

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fsckboy 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>No, the reason was to save tax money

no, it wasn't, it was SCOTUS decision O'Connor v. Donaldson

	▲	KPGv2 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think in 2025, it is naïve to think the Supreme Court is apolitical in its rulings. =

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squigz 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The reason may have been good. The response really wasn't.

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Ajakks 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Wow.

No.