You've learned well. One thing I remember very well about the Reagan years. He cut federal spending on state mental hospitals and many of them had to cut the care they had been giving.
Actually, that had nothing to do with the President himself. Now this is almost getting off-topic, so I will only say this once. To pay attention and read closely (and even do some research for yourself).
In the mid 1970's, the issue of "Involuntary Commitment" had gone all the way to the US Supreme Court. And this resulted in 2 landmark decisions.
The first was
O'Connor v. Donaldson (1975), which stated that confining a non-dangerous individual against their will was an illegal nonjudicial form of incarceration, therefore in violation to an individual's right to liberty.
A State cannot constitutionally confine a non-dangerous individual who is capable of surviving safely in freedom by themselves or with the help of willing and responsible family members or friends.
Holding of 422 U.S. 563, Unanimous decision, Chief Justice Burger concurring.
Now that did start to turn things around, but at that time the only real requirement was that there be a "preponderance of the evidence" that the individual was a danger to themselves or others, not the overwhelming evidence that is required today.
That was the first blow to mandatory commitment. The second came 3 years later in 1978.
In
Addington v. Texas (1978), the Court again weighed in on involuntary commitment. In this case, they raised the bar even higher, essentially making it a legal procedure in order to commit somebody against their will. The State had to present "clear and convincing evidence" in order to commit somebody beyond 72 hours. This caused a lot of mentally ill people to submit "Addington Declarations", which pretty much stated that the state had 72 hours to make determinations to how they were a danger, or to release them. Most were able to slow this down by right of the huge number of such petitions filed, but within a year the patients were leaving the hospitals in droves.
This, and not the President is what opened the floodgates for the mentally ill to leave the Mental Hospitals and become homeless on the streets. The late 1970's and early 1980's saw an exodus of former patients from these hospitals leaving them, and all to often becoming homeless. And with a lower number of inmates, of course the funding for these facilities decreased.
But it was not the lack of funding that led to the mentally unstable being kicked onto the streets. It is because they themselves got up and walked away, the hospitals then had funding cuts because of the greatly decreased population. By 1980
Now maybe you know a little more about the history of mental care in this country, and why it seemed that suddenly in the 1980's there were a huge number of mentally disturbed homeless on the streets. They were not kicked out by Reagan, they walked out due to 2 Supreme Court decisions. I for one remember the old Oregon State Mental Hospital in Salem. It was once a giant sprawling complex, with it's own private railroad for moving patients from one area to another, and over 3,000 beds.
Today it is a much smaller 620 bed facility, primarily for those criminally insane or a danger to themselves and others. The simple crazy people do not have to stay, so they do not.
