Warnings not heeded.

[Gob]

Hey! Sue!!

[Sean]

Perhaps the UK is just a bit too aragant (sp) in their thinking that they are such a superior civilization. Personally I think they are going a wee bit overboard.

What makes you think this Miles?

It's the pretentiously affected accent that does it for me!

It's worth pointing out for the record that most British people speak nothing like Hugh Grant... In the real world we have regional accents just like other countries.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Cor blimey! Dja fink so? That 'ugh Grant don't sound nuffink like me 'n my mates. 'E's 'n arseole inny? Poncey 'n all.

[Lord Jim]

I can attest to the fact that Strop's accent can be called many things, but a "pretentious affectation" it ain't...

It has to be genuine....

Nobody would go out of their way to deliberately "affect" such an accent....

[Jarlaxle]

So needless.

The team of so-called professionals have much to answer for.

IDIOTS!

They should be on the hook as accessories to first degree murder.

[Jarlaxle]

In California it was Reagan, not the ACLU, who closed the mental hospitals and put the mentally ill out on the street.

It just boggles the mind to think that there's still someone ignorant enough to buy that "Ronald Reagan threw all the crazy people out on the street" canard...

But I guess it's not all that surprising; coming as it does from the guy who believes this:

Ever since the revolutionary war our navy has dominated every sea it has sailed in. The UK navy have been a dim 2nd or 4th to us ever since.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7793&p=98118&hilit= ... avy#p98118

If you're that ignorant, I don't suppose there are a whole lot of limitations to your ignorance....

Rube is not ignorant, Jim. Ignorance can be corrected. Rube is--demonstrably--incurably STUPID.

[Joe Guy]

I'm beginning to think that Lord Jim doesn't like rubato.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I'm certainly not arrogant, nor superior!

That's right you're not, because I am.

[Andrew D]

With respect to the closure of many of California's mental hospitals and the consequent release of numerous lunatics onto the streets -- and, in all too many cases, from the streets to the jails -- there appears to be plenty of blame to go around.

Following are excerpts from three articles. The first two deal with the history of mental-health policy in California, and the third points out that one result of California's mental-health policy has been to shift "many of [the mentally ill] from one kind of institution – mental hospitals – to another – its jails and prisons."

There is an interesting article (in PDF, which I do not know how to link) entitled "Funding Public Health In California" which says, among other things:

Deinstitutionalization and the Transfer of Responsibility

The early years of the mental health system in California were characterized by state-run
psychiatric hospitalization. People with severe mental illness were offered little hope for
recovery, and many were placed indefinitely in these institutions. The first such facility –
Stockton State Hospital – opened in 1853. By the end of 1957, a total of 14 state hospitals
housed a population of 36,319.

In the early 1950s, however, the introduction of chlorpromazine (Thorazine) and its sister
drugs opened up new possibilities for treating severe mental illness in the community. In
response to this trend, California legislators enacted the1957 Short-Doyle Act, which
stipulated major changes in the funding responsibility and provision of mental health care.
The legislation was based in the idea that, with most mental illness could be treated with
psychoactive drugs in the community and that increased availability of community services
would encourage people to voluntarily seek treatment earlier and achieve a fuller and more
rapid recovery. The bill provided 50% matching state funds to cities or counties for most
mental health programs. In 1963, the State increased its match for local Short-Doyle programs
to 75%, and broadened the types of programs that were eligible for state funding.
By 1967, about 87% of the state population had access to local Short-Doyle programs.

In 1968, the pivotal Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS) became the aggressive next step
in shifting to community-based care. The law required that a judicial hearing be held to
determine whether a person could be involuntarily hospitalized, greatly reducing the
frequency of such commitments. In addition, LPS required all counties in California with
populations over 100,000 to establish mental health programs, and the law increased the
state funding match for local programs to 90%. The Reagan and subsequent state
administrations promoted the trend to community-based care by closing nine state
hospitals; only five remain in operation today. Between 1957 and 1984, the California state
hospital population dropped 84%. Together, these developments placed the primary
clinical responsibility for mental health care on the counties, which were forced to rely for
the bulk of their funding on the State.

The envisioned success of this “deinstitutionalization” rested largely on the assumption that
as hospitals closed, the funds saved from their closure would “follow the patient” into the
community. But in 1972 and 1973, California governor Ronald Reagan vetoed two funding
provisions designed to protect these savings for mental health, beginning an ongoing pattern
of funding diversions and shortfalls. At the same time, many California counties had not
developed extensive mental health programs prior to 1957 and were struggling to cover
the steadily growing outpatient population. Although the philosophy that motivated
deinstitutionalization was sound in principle – the belief that people could be successfully
treated in less restrictive settings at a far lower cost – its implementation left counties with
a clinical burden that was grossly disproportionate to the funding they actually received.

There is an interesting, though dated, article here which says, among other things:

In California, for example, the number of patients in state mental hospitals reached a peak of 37,500 in 1959 when Edmund G. Brown was Governor, fell to 22,000 when Ronald Reagan attained that office in 1967, and continued to decline under his administration and that of his successor, Edmund G. Brown Jr. The senior Mr. Brown now expresses regret about the way the policy started and ultimately evolved. ''They've gone far, too far, in letting people out,'' he said in an interview.

More broadly, that article says:

THE policy that led to the release of most of the nation's mentally ill patients from the hospital to the community is now widely regarded as a major failure. Sweeping critiques of the policy, notably the recent report of the American Psychiatric Association, have spread the blame everywhere, faulting politicians, civil libertarian lawyers and psychiatrists.

But who, specifically, played some of the more important roles in the formation of this ill-fated policy? What motivated these influential people and what lessons are to be learned?

A detailed picture has emerged from a series of interviews and a review of public records, research reports and institutional recommendations. The picture is one of cost-conscious policy makers, who were quick to buy optimistic projections that were, in some instances, buttressed by misinformation and by a willingness to suspend skepticism.

Many of the psychiatrists involved as practitioners and policy makers in the 1950's and 1960's said in the interviews that heavy responsibility lay on a sometimes neglected aspect of the problem: the overreliance on drugs to do the work of society.

The records show that the politicians were dogged by the image and financial problems posed by the state hospitals and that the scientific and medical establishment sold Congress and the state legislatures a quick fix for a complicated problem that was bought sight unseen.

* * *

The original policy changes were backed by scores of national professional and philanthropic organizations and several hundred people prominent in medicine, academia and politics. The belief then was widespread that the same scientific researchers who had conjured up antibiotics and vaccines during the outburst of medical discovery in the 50's and 60's had also developed penicillins to cure psychoses and thus revolutionize the treatment of the mentally ill.

And these leaders were prodded into action by a series of scientific studies in the 1950's purporting to show that mental illness was far more prevalent than had previously been believed.

Finally, there was a growing economic and political liability faced by state legislators. Enormous amounts of tax revenues were being used to support the state mental hospitals, and the institutions themselves were increasingly thought of as ''snake pits'' or facilities that few people wanted.

Perhaps most disturbingly, another article in PDF, entitled "Jails and the Mentally Ill: Issues and Analysis," prepared by the California Corrections Standards Authority, says, among many other things:

Background: In the 1970s, then-Governor Ronald Reagan closed California’s large
mental hospitals in order to “deinstitutionalize” the mentally ill and encourage their
treatment in local communities. Over the intervening 30-plus years, this well intentioned
effort has proven to have serious downside effects. Communities were not prepared to
treat and care for all of the mentally ill in their populations; families were often left
without treatment resources, either locally or at the state level. There was nowhere to
turn for help , except to the one place that MUST accept almost everyone brought to it –
the jail. Rather than deinstitutionalize people with mental illness, California has shifted
many of them from one kind of institution – mental hospitals – to another – its jails and
prisons.

Numbers: The national GAINS Center estimates that approximately 800,000 people
with serious mental illness are admitted annually to U.S. jails and that, among these
admissions, the preponderance (72%) also meet criteria for co-occurring substance
abuse disorders.3

A 2009 American Psychiatric Association study “found that 14.5% of male and
31.0% of female inmates recently admitted to jail have a serious mental illness,
[confirming] what jail administrators already know – a substantial proportion of inmates
entering jails have a serious mental illness and women have rates two times those of
men.”4

California’s jails, according to CSA’s Jail Profile Survey (JPS) for the end of 2007
(the most recent data available), reported having 27,450 open mental health case files
for the statewide jail population of 82,662 inmates. This should not be interpreted to
mean that one-third of all jail inmates were mentally ill, but does suggest that a mental
health query or procedure was reported to have been initiated for 33% of the statewide
jail population. In that same time frame, jails reported that 9,263 inmates were receiving
psychotropic medications.

3 National GAINS Center, http://gainscenter.samhsa.gov/html/jail ... _is_jd.asp

4 American Psychiatric Association, New Study Released on Prevalence of Serious Mental Illness
Among Jail Inmates, Psychiatric Services 60:761-765, June 2009.

[Lord Jim]

Rube is not ignorant, Jim. Ignorance can be corrected. Rube is--demonstrably--incurably STUPID.

Those are not mutually exclusive concepts ...

One can be both profoundly ignorant, and "incurably STUPID"...

A lack of knowledge can theoretically be addressed, but not if the person on the receiving end of that knowledge is too stupid to comprehend it...

All the knowledge in the world won't help a person who is too stupid to process it properly...

I believe that's what the evidence supports we've got going on in this case...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Background: In the 1970s, then-Governor Ronald Reagan closed California’s large mental hospitals in order to “deinstitutionalize” the mentally ill and encourage their treatment in local communities. Over the intervening 30-plus years, this well intentioned effort has proven to have serious downside effects.

So within the limits of experimental error, rubato was correct then:

In California it was Reagan, not the ACLU, who closed the mental hospitals and put the mentally ill out on the street.

He could have achieved greater accuracy by adding "and into jails" before pointing out that subsequent governors have done nothing to change the situation.

Meade

[Lord Jim]

Okay Meade...(sigh...)

Background: In the 1970s, then-Governor Ronald Reagan closed California’s large mental hospitals in order to “deinstitutionalize” the mentally ill and encourage their treatment in local communities. Over the intervening 30-plus years, this well intentioned effort has proven to have serious downside effects.

It was considered a humane and forward thinking move at the time....

(My personal view is that we'd all have been better off if they'd been kept in the Nut House...)

But if you believe, (as rube apparently does) that some 40 years on, that Mr. Reagan is in some way responsible for those who urinate on the streets and walk about talking to themselves in 2012...

Well, I suppose you're entitled to that opinion...(so rube, what was the "compassion" versus "punishment" matrix involved there?)

I also think it's fair to say...

That there is not one person on the streets today, because Ronald Reagan put them there...

[Lord Jim]

I'm beginning to think that Lord Jim doesn't like rubato.

Joe, you couldn't possibly be more wrong...

I'd be very sorry to see rube leave our little Ecumenical Village....

I couldn't ask for a more natural Straight Man...

There aren't that many people in the world who can make me look as good as he can...

[MajGenl.Meade]

But if you believe, (as rube apparently does) that some 40 years on, that Mr. Reagan is in some way responsible for those who urinate on the streets and walk about talking to themselves in 2012...

Mr. Reagan is deceased - he is not now responsible for anything at all. I don't know what rube believes (and think his characterization of Mr. Reagan's successor governors/governments as 'conservative' is patently absurd). But he did not state that urinators and self-talkers of 2012 were put in that situation by Mr. Reagan.

He reacted to a statement that the ACLU closed the hospitals. He pointed out that they did not; Mr. Reagan did. It's a fact. If anything, it is "apparent" that rubato accused Reagan's successors of not changing the situation and therefore "blame" (if any) for demented persons wandering the streets in 2012 is firmly fixed in current policies, programmes and politicos.

I grant you that rubato's animus is such that he may well feel that Mr. Reagan and/or anything to the right of Lenin are responsible for leprosy, conjunctivitis, soil erosion, clubbed seal pups and the disappearance of honey bees etc. but in this particular case his statement stands as consistent with facts and therefore not 'stupid'. When he moves in the other direction I shall be happy to chastise him with a wet noodle.

Agreed of course that well-meaning souls wanted to find alternative solutions to involuntary hospitalisation, but they did rather intend that more local treatment solutions should be funded. Sadly, the good intentions seem to have ended with the closing of the hospitals.

Meade

[oldr_n_wsr]

Lord Jim wrote
walk about talking to themselves

I thought they were on their cell phones.