The article raises an interesting point for us in the UK. Until the time of Mrs Thatcher most towns and cities across the UK had a 1000+ psychiatric hospital near them. Then the policy became that they would close down and most patients were then discharged into 'the community' and became our neighbours. I know this because I was, at that time, part of a team that discharged patients from a hospital in Epsom to all sorts of community settings. The 'care in the Community' policy has carried on through the Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and Mrs May years. I don't know how many thousands of people it involved but it wasn't just a 'few,' I would guess it would now be over hundreds of thousands?!
I have no problem with the policy and would not like to return to that way of life but the public at large, when they talk about prominant cases in the newspapers, do not seem to know about this recent UK history and how a change of policy can affect society in all sorts of ways. As I remember it the first real problem to hit the headlines soon after the policy came into effect, was when a man called Mr Zito was pushed onto a railway line by an ex-patient and was killed. His wife Mrs Zito then spent a few years running an information/charity site about such issues. I wonder where Mrs Zito is today?
During my hiking career I have recognised and talked to many people en-route, who in the 'olden days' would have been incarcerated in large institutions, but now they live everywhere and move everywhere as we do. From my experience, the major weakness of care in the community is that no one really gave a thought as to how you would manage people with difficulties from a geographical distance. In the old institution days, the staff would have been there as each problem happened but as I know from personal experience, what do you do when your client is experiencing a mental/physical crisis when you as the 'responsible person' who would like to intervene but the problem is that at the time if the incident I am 106 miles away!?
I know a Police Sargeant who has often expressed the view that about 70% of her time today is dealing with people with mental health issues, so little time to deal with crime!
I often ask mysel,f did the Thatcher government really do it for the concern of the patients, or was it just a 'trick' to save or stop spending money to help them? I know what I think!