openpolitics.com

These shootings are another tragic symptom of our contemptible outsourcing of the severely mentally ill to law enforcement. The police are our de facto front-line mental-health workers — “armed social workers” in the pungent phrase of one observer — and jails are our de facto psychiatric-hospital system.

.. It’s a poignant lament, but why do the families of the severely mentally ill need to rely on the police for medical assistance? When someone has a heart attack or gets cancer, we don’t call the police.

The answer is simple. In response to abuses, we emptied out mental institutions, but didn’t make adequate provisions for otherwise treating the severely mentally ill, who are often left to suffer their delusions with overwhelmed, often frightened family members, or to rot on the streets or in jails. “There are less than 100,000 seriously mentally ill in psychiatric hospitals being cared for by the mental health system,” D. J. Jaffe, the executive director of Mental Illness Policy.Org, writes. “But there are 365,000 incarcerated. There are also 770,000 on probation or parole and 165,000 homeless.”

.. A more rational and humane policy would give families robust treatment options before it gets to the point of calling the cops. This would mean more psychiatric hospital beds and more options for mandated care. Representative Tim Murphy (R., Pa.) has a bill to push the mental-health system in this direction. The alternative is to continue to default to police to cope with out-of-control people, often brandishing weapons, and hope for the best — and brace for the worst.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429164/police-shootings-mental-illness-problem