The rocky road of deinstitutionalisation
It is for this reason that America, in the 1980s, embarked on a daring and ambitious plan of community-based care (or "care in the community" as it was called in the UK). Instead of mentally ill people being locked away in padded rooms in dank institutions, their senses dulled by a tray-load of drugs, it was decided that they could be better served by continuing to function as members of society, with, of course, full support from the social services and medical professionals.
Unfortunately, no strategy for dealing with the mentally ill is without it's failures and setbacks, as we see with the recent death of Jordan Neely, a mentally hill African-American man who eked out a living entertaining his fellow New Yorkers with Michael Jackson impersonations, generally performed on crowded New York subway trains to captive audiences.
Although attempts were no doubt made to offer support and therapy to Neely over the years, it appears that his condition spiralled downwards -- despite the obvious warmth and sympathy for him expressed by his fellow New Yorkers shortly after his death.
On Monday, following an unfortunate series of incidents on a NYC subway train, Neely was temporarily restrained in a chokehold by a member of the public, leading to his untimely demise.
Although attempts were no doubt made to offer support and therapy to Neely over the years, it appears that his condition spiralled downwards -- despite the obvious warmth and sympathy for him expressed by his fellow New Yorkers shortly after his death.
On Monday, following an unfortunate series of incidents on a NYC subway train, Neely was temporarily restrained in a chokehold by a member of the public, leading to his untimely demise.
The intense upwelling of grief and emotion that has since greeted Neely's death reveals that there is still a considerable basis for continuing a policy of "care in the community" for the growing army of mentally damaged people in our society. This, combined with the exorbitant cost of actually providing professional institutionalised care for these people, will ensure that it is our only option.
I’m at the Broadway-Lafayette station, where a crowd of people is protesting the killing of Jordan Neely on an F train yesterday. pic.twitter.com/A0yp7p4pwQ
— Samantha Max (@samanthaellimax) May 3, 2023
Well, if you scream "Oh noes, communism!!!" each and every time it is proposed the state put money into other things than just the military and megalomaniacal spaceprograms. Then you end up strangling nutty strangers in the subway and/or being strangled by them.
ReplyDeleteThe solution is euthanasia.
ReplyDeleteYou might want to think about how you express yourself, as technically you are advocating murder, a criminal act when I last checked.
DeleteBecause no government ever made killing people legal ever.
DeleteThanks for the clarification. I was hoping you meant to observe all the legal decencies. We're good.
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