DId you agree with Reagan shutting down all mental institutions?

Question

Now, I know this was years and years ago, and some of you may not have been around, but for those who were, do you think this was a good idea? I ask because of the burgeoning population of homeless people who are mentally unstable...do you think the hospitals should be reopened in light of better knowledge of mental illness and how to treat it effectively?

this is NOT a flaming question! It is an honest one that many (not all) have done justice by giving their thoughts. Thanks to those who are taking it for what it is.

Answer 1

Absolutely not! Many of those mentally ill are in prison now. It's a very bad thing for public safety as well as the safety of those individuals. He cut the costs back then but our prisons are full of people with severe mental illness so now we pay....pay now or pay later. Smart of Reagan, like many CEOs, because if you cut costs temporarily, nobody connects it to costs later.

According to a 1999 Department of Justice report, at least 16 percent of the total jail and prison population, or nearly 300,000 people, have a serious mental illness – more than four times the number in state mental hospitals.

The costs of such incarceration are enormous. According to the Department of Justice (1996 Source Book: Criminal Justice Statistics), it costs American taxpayers a staggering $15 billion per year to house individuals with psychiatric disorders in jails and prisons ($50,000 per person annually; 300,000 incarcerated individuals with mental illness).

Answer 2

No, I don't agree with the shutting of mental institutions down, although some of them should have been for mistreatment of the patients. There are many more mentally ill people that are homeless and in prison, because they have no where to turn. Group homes for the developmentally disabled are all over the place now, and the employees..who are trained to do basically what the nurses used to do..get paid barely minimum wage. Also, anyone without a felony and a high school diploma can be hired in. They don't need any extensive training in mental illnesses or the developmentally disabled. This leads to abuse, and neglect in group homes. I'm not saying they are all bad, but not having institutions has not created anything but less paying jobs, for unqualified people.

Answer 3

in 1955 congress authorized the federal Mental Health Study Act. The formal report from that study was returned in 1961 and incorporated into The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 (CMHA), the very last piece of legislation signed by JFK. The CMHA encouraged the deinstitutionalization of mental health services and the building of local, community based services using federal dollars. For a number of reasons the CMHA was a failure as is was underfunded & voluntary. "Big box" institutions were shut down and clients turned out with no place to go. In 1986 the Reagan administration enacted public law 99-660 which replaced CMHA funding with mental health block grants to the states which were conditional on implementing mandates, such as actually providing community based services and conducting outreach programs to bring the mentally ill in for treatment; something not required in the 1963 legislation. Unfortunately PL 99-660 and its subsequent updates (ie. PL 101-639) have been no better funded than the original 1963 legislation. Treatment has also been hampered by court rulings which say that a person cannot be forced into treatment unless he is a threat to others or himself.

Answer 4

Look at the streets of big cities. I was recently in San Francisco and saw at least 3 people just talking away. No blackberry or other person. One of them even chased the imaginary person he was talking to accusing the other person of stealing a newspaper from him. While most of those people are harmless it doesn't look well when tourists are in town to see them roaming the streets. The really insane are in the few institutions still available for them. I know of very few that are in homes of loving family. Maybe because they are not as visible as the ones on the streets.

Reagan closed down the very places that could help those people who are now on the streets. Some don't need much but now they have nothing.

Some say, well they got that way from doing drugs and should have known better. This serves them right. We all make mistakes in life. Some are more costly than most. There is a man that roams our neighborhood (suburban). He has tattoos on his head, face, all over. He is frightening. He had a sad life of parents who did not care. War in Vietnam contributed to his fate too and now because of his looks all he can do is roam the streets and beg. He knows he made a big mistake and is paying for it now. If he had a place to go he might be able to at least have shelter and a change of clothing. The churches in the area help when they can but this poor man is sick in the head. He's not dangerous even though he looks scary. But, one day, who knows, he may snap and look out.

So the answer from me is yes and no. It depends on the neighborhood and their needs.

Answer 5

I was a Reagan fan but he went down the wrong road on this one. Those people hit our streets, and many of them didn't have family to go to, or any that would take them in, and they ended up homeless and without any help for their mental illnesses. Instead of shutting down the institutions they should have been revamped to operate more efficiently. I do think that the mentally ill on our streets need to be given help, and perhaps reopening these hospitals, with many changes to the old system of course, would be the answer. I have often been dismayed at the tendency of people to dismiss those on the street who have mental illnesses as being trash, or subhuman and undeserving of compassion or help. We walk around them, we ignore them, and we don't give them the basic care most people would give a homeless animal.

Answer 6

I don't know enough about it, but it sure seemed to be a bad idea.

To me this is an example of a "liberal" cause being co-opted by more "convervative" forces. There was a movement to "liberate" people from these types of settings - it sounded egalitarian and enlightened. But it was also a way to save money, so the folks who didn't want to spend jumped on the bandwagon.

Similarly, every time a social liberal calls an anti-illegal immigration person a "racist," a business owner who wants cheap labor and does not want to pay benefits is smiling.

Some would also say that aspects of the women's movement helped men more than women. More responsibility-free sex, less stigma attached to having a child and not raising it. Several polls show that a higher percentage of men than women favor abortion rights.

I think we need to do whatever is necessary to help the people who need it. I'm sure we're not doing enough. If we need to re-institutionalize, I'm all for it. I have had to deal with this issue in my own family, and so I have an inkling of what's involved.

Answer 7

Again, what is your source??? Did he shut down ANY? I'm much older than you and I happen to know that there were very few mental institutions left when Reagan went into office. How can you call yourself a debater when you can't handle one idea at a time? You are simultaneously trying to argue that the loss of mental hospitals is bad (which I agree with, by the way), and trying to pin it on conservatives when it was a liberal idea.

Answer 8

No,,that does not make for a humane society,,a society is judged by how well its weakest most disadvantaged citizen is treated,,and putting the mentally ill into the streets creates more homeless people. Plus it halted really important research that was ongoing for serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.

Answer 9

No, but then what do expect from a Republican?
Reagan was our second greatest Republican president after Nixon, but he ranks way below Franklin Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, Andrew Jackson, Lyndon Johnson, James Monroe, Jimmy Carter, Thomas Jefferson, John Tyler, Harry Truman, and John Kennedy.

Answer 10

Yes. Mental Institutions were a national disgrace. I think we should reopen them. I think we should start by passing the hat at the Oscars. The jewelery alone would run a hospital for twenty years!