Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Clearly mentally ill. He will finally get treatment - in prison, instead of in a mental health hospital.
We need to bring back public mental health institutions.
It's not that easy. The reasons why public mental health institutions closed are complex - a large part of it was a desire to protect the civil liberties of the patients. It's now virtually impossible to hold someone for longer than 72 hours in the U.S. unless they've committed crimes of violence. The original intent was that community agencies would provide mental health services and meds, but that part never happened. That's why you have so many mentally ill and addicted homeless on the street.
You'll see progressive writers laying the blame at Reagan's feet, but as the above article points out, the decline in facilities was already happening when he took office.
I'm a licensed professional counselor, and I wouldn't attempt to diagnose someone as developmentally disabled based on a photograph rather than on a battery of psychological tests. Your comment is indeed way off base.
There are physical characteristics that go along with mental retardation or developmental disability as described. Most medical professionals would not need a 'battery of psychological tests' to figure out that someone is mentally retarded. Even the average kid on the street usually can figure it out without the guidance of a licensed professional counselor.
By your own admission, my comment could be spot on for all you know, since you cannot personally tell anything based on a photo, and would require a battery of tests.
I personally feel sorry for homeless people in general. Any institution is messed up in my opinion. Doesn't matter who its for, but there is no population easier to mistreat and abuse than the mentally ill.
I think they should be out in normal society until they need to be confined to protect either themselves or others. Maybe we need a better society for them. One that can spend less money on million dollar a pop missiles and stuff, and more toward making sure OUR mentally ill have a minimum amount of oversight and supervision.
With the proper environment, this may never happen. Once something like this does happen, its too late to prevent anything, and prison is the only place.
There are physical characteristics that go along with mental retardation or developmental disability as described. Most medical professionals would not need a 'battery of psychological tests' to figure out that someone is mentally retarded. Even the average kid on the street usually can figure it out without the guidance of a licensed professional counselor....
Again, you're way off base. Developmental disability can't be diagnosed without testing by someone who knows what he/she is doing:
Quote:
... The author writes that autistic children do not exhibit any unique outward, physical characteristics and deviation from their non-autistic peers. While behavioral characteristic and deviations are more pronounced in autistic children, they do not typically show any physical characteristics indicating autism.
According to Thomas L. Whitman in the book “The Development of Autism- A Self-Regulatory Perspective," it is not uncommon to describe autistic children as being exceptionally beautiful.
Some autistic children, however, may display minor anomalies in their physical form and characteristics. ...
These characteristics may not necessarily pinpoint autism and could be caused by other underlying conditions. Parents and caregivers must seek professional assessment/evaluation if they suspect autism.
People are trying to turn this into a crime and punishment issue, but even the authorities are saying this is a major failing in mental health care.
I was accosted by a homeless schizophrenic off his meds a few years ago. It wasn't theft he was interested in. I was able to talk him down because of my mental health training, but the poor man was about ten seconds from me killing him. I had angled our our bodies into a position where I was about to throat punch him into heavy traffic.
I carry a knife at all times now. It looks like a key.
He had no business wandering the streets. He was very sick. We just treat em and street em.
He was picked up for loitering the previous day. Should we just lock someone up and throw away the key for that? He wasn't released with the charge of rape and then went and tried to rape someone. He was arrested and shortly detained for loitering.
If we had good mental health care, maybe he would have been closely examined and he might have gotten a psych hold. But that didn't happen. Seems like there were warning signs. But no follow through.
He was evaluated for mental health problems, when he was detained in jail temporarily, earlier. It was an evaluation to determine if he could be institutionalized against his will, but the evaluators said he didn't meet the criteria. I bet he does, now. I hope so. In any case, even if not, he'll be put away for awhile, anyway, for the two assaults.
He must have raised suspicions, in order to have been detained for vagrancy. Santa Cruz's downtown routinely has homeless wandering around, but they don't get detained for mental health evaluations. It looks like the evaluators goofed. It would be good to have a news follow-up on this case.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
