Why is our society so tolerant of this? Why should anyone, let alone an educated, working professional have to put up with this?
If nothing else, it should be clear that the behavior will result in immediate corrective action. If it’s not, then there’s no deterrent at all.
"declining communities must respond to drug abuse, homelessness, and antisocial behavior"
A significant cause of drug abuse is chronic untreated pain, another significant cause is addiction CAUSED by medical treatment (the so-called opioid crisis), and of course neither homelessness nor antisocial behavior are even remotely mental problems. In short, VERY few of these people have mental illnesses other than being poor.
In other words what this article is complaining about are ... economic problems that cause people to become more desperate, less willing to compromise and all of those economic problems must of course be mental illnesses. Futurama put it best:
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/ec2178ed-acf0-4aab-9141-2c17d11...
All of this of course means that the vast majority of "mentally ill" do not have any problem responding rationally. Their rational responses are simply not what the clinic and/or other people want to see. For example panicked responses to not receiving treatment for a child because they have no alternative. The article reports that ERs let some people wait for weeks before any actual medical care was provided, then complain these people protest, and at some point protest strongly, even violently.
It is not "mental illness" that makes people unwilling to accept this, and it is not irrational. And, of course, there is a point where people decide violence is more likely to get them somewhere than acting nice. That, too, is not irrational.
If a doctor refused care for your daughter who, say, has an epileptic seizure. How long would you accept waiting in an emergency room before you would start shouting? How long before you'd turn violent?
Because in all honesty, it wouldn't be weeks.
The solution is better medical care, and LESS mental health "help", of course.
Some other countries have similar problems and yet others have little or no trouble. In the long run the social conditions that cause the violence have to addressed, adding security protects people in the moment but does not fix the root cause.
I realize that this is cold comfort to those affected right now.
Ban those people from emergency services.
I live in a country with universal healthcare. When I get sick or have an accident that requires urgent medical treatment, I'm wasting literally zero thought on "Can I actually afford this?", I just get the help I need and it won't leave me with massive debt.
I can't even imagine how depressing, and for some probably enraging, it must be to be in a situation of distress and pain, while having to consider if one can actually afford to get professional help, without having to pay off crushing debt for the rest of one's life.
The surprise here is how few people snap from this very apparent inhumanity going on.
Whenever I think of rights, it is things that society and other people must not do, rather than something that other people must provide for me.
A sick society is one that cannot handle minor disagreements.
And whatever valor is, nobody agrees exactly. Building a society on such nebulous things is a great way to end up with some kind of extremist -ism.
You don’t get to extremism from tolerance and diversity. Acceptance of minor disagreements is a good thing.
However, most people who consume emergency services, don't do so unconscious. Hospitals, EMS, etc. want to get paid, so you're going to be asked for an ID sooner than later.
Some people might not want to give ID, or just not have it on them. I don't know what hospitals do in this case currently, but it doesn't seem like a huge stretch to just make those people give fingerprints to continue treatment.
This[1] claims that 4 finger IDs from fingerprints are 99.9% accurate, which isn't perfect, but it's pretty good.
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1. https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2004/07/nist-study-sho...
You prosecute someone that's mentally ill and send them to jail. Now the jail has to deal with violent outbursts and is generally not equipped to handle people on a medical level like that. Our prison system is designed to punish people, so those people if they get out of jail fall back into the same issues.
The answer to solve these problems is better preventative care. Meaning better healthcare for vulnerable populations, better solutions to housing for the homeless and so forth. Unfortunately solutions like this require things like increased taxes or recognizing the problem exists and many would prefer to just sweep it under the rug for people in emergency rooms and jails to deal with.
None of this discussion solves the actual problem at hand, it just deals with the symptoms. Eventually the problem will become uncontrollable if you just ignore the actual damn reasons why people with said issues end up becoming homeless or violent in the first place.
We can and should chip away at risk factors, but the human brain is wickedly complex and we're never going to get 100% health and behavior within norms. Just like we can and should encourage exercise and healthy diets, but we're still going to need the medical system.
Truly a good solution. /s
Check out some rural newspapers for these type of police briefs or court news.
However, imprisoning the mentally ill carries its own set of issues.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/04/25/6056661...
The US generally has severe enough punishments, and increases do little to add deterrence (and the downsides then take over).
Certainty and speed are weak though. People drive in a civilised manner because if you don't, a cop will write you out a ticket. But if people behave in an uncivilised manner in a more criminal way, it's actually unconstitutional to have swift and certain penalties.
People are fine arguing that the 2nd amendment was more appropriate for the era of muskets. Maybe the 5th is more appropriate for an era where overly harsh sentences were applied to political prisoners through the use of torture.
It can be dangerous to give governments carte blanche to do this...
> Sluggish schizophrenia or slow progressive schizophrenia was a diagnostic category used in the Soviet Union to describe what was claimed to be a form of schizophrenia characterized by a slowly progressive course; it was diagnosed even in patients who showed no symptoms of schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, on the assumption that these symptoms would appear later. The diagnosis has long been discredited because of its scientific inadequacy and its use as a means of confining dissenters. It is considered a prime example of the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.
We should strive to have compassion for the homeless and ill, not imprison them.
It's a nice thought, and should probably be an option, but it won't be sufficient on its own, I don't think.
Would it surprise you to learn that many with severe mental illnesses do not voluntarily undergo treatment? A friend worked in a job training and support program, first with chronically homeless, and then with mentally disabled specifically. The single biggest obstacle most faced was their own unwillingness to accept or stick with treatment.
The homeless in particular that this friend worked with were untrusting of any program that might potentially hinder their autonomy- so they would show up for the free bus cards, food and job training, but any hint of medical support and they would disappear for fear of being taken off the street and locked up.
Most, given the choice between jail or treatment, would choose jail, simply because there was a defined time period that they would get their freedom back, plus no pills.
It's sad that we need bouncers for the ER, but here we are.