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quadmasta t1_j8adyas wrote

Reply to comment by kstinfo in Man charged with attacking Rep. Angie Craig has history of arrests for lewd and violent incidents by Caratteraccio

There's no real mental health system. It was dismantled in favor of prisons

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RunningNumbers t1_j8c9bqx wrote

No. It was dismantled by the Federal government. Costs and responsibilities were sent to the states. Austerity during the 70s and 80s had those programs cut and shifted to localities that could not handle these issues.

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Politicsboringagain t1_j8d72h0 wrote

You both said tje same thing.

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RunningNumbers t1_j8d88i4 wrote

They are not the same thing. The above implies resources from mental health was moved to prisons which is not what happened. The other explains the series of cuts caused by strained government budgets in the 70s.

I get that both rhetorical nihilism (words have no meaning and deliberate conflation) and epistemological nihilism (outright rejection of subject knowledge or basic inquiry) are popular on Reddit. But those are really lazy ways to look at the world because it requires purely passive contrarian thinking.

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Jicd t1_j8ddzub wrote

You're describing the cause, above commenter is describing the effect. Because mental health was basically erased from the government's list of services, a lot of people who would end up there now don't get any kind of help until they're in deep shit and get arrested.

Not that most prisons actually do anything to make sure prisoners are in a more mentally or emotionally stable position when they're released, but practically that's where the buck gets passed to right now.

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