Discrimination in 2009

RE: discrimination against the mentally ill. There is also the criminalization of mental illness. The jails are full of people who have a medical illness: mental disorders. Yet, the only solution that our society is willing to consider for this population is imprisonment and sometimes death by execution.

There was a sad case in the AJC recently: a schizophrenic woman was released from a state mental hospital despite the pleas of her family to keep her hospitalized. She was sent home anyway where she poured gasoline on her mother and set her afire. NOW the state will house her.....in prison. What sense does that make?

The mother's last words to the rest of her family were "Take care of Na Yong( the daughter who murdered her). Don't hate Na Yong"

I think it was our friend Ronald Reagan that said all mentally ill people had the right to roam the streets, and accordingly funding was cut for programs that the mentally ill needed. Criminalization was the only natural course of action. Not to mention all of the Anti-Social Personalities that float in and out of county jails and the prison system.

@ Herring- Why on ewarth can't the old LAC-USC Facility be used as some kind of transitional housing for the homeless mentally ill? Possible crisis stabilization and re-entrance into the community? We've got a real problem that make many parts of this city very dangerous.

I'll never forget meeting a young HIV pos man who's hallucinations were telling him to infect others in public restrooms. What I find so frightening is that I am sure there are no shortage of stories like that one.