A temporary program for “dangerously mentally ill” patients has continued for five decades, despite calls from critics to provide better care. Soon, Idaho will be the only state still using prisons to house patients who face no criminal charges.
Yes. More to the point, there’s a lot of things that we use cops and prisons for that cops and prisons are just plain unqualified to do.
When your solution to mental illness is cops, you tend to kill or imprison people without helping them.
When your answer to homelessness is cops, you still have homeless people but they end up in prisons or dead when it’s cheaper and more humane to give them housing and some time with a social worker
etc, etc
Yes. More to the point, there’s a lot of things that we use cops and prisons for that cops and prisons are just plain unqualified to do.
When your solution to mental illness is cops, you tend to kill or imprison people without helping them. When your answer to homelessness is cops, you still have homeless people but they end up in prisons or dead when it’s cheaper and more humane to give them housing and some time with a social worker etc, etc