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I'm all in favor of their being confined. We once had a functioning mental health system with residential treatment. But it was destroyed by liberals who announced that all these people should be free to "express themselves" (i.e., "live productive and satisfying lives" - yeah, right!) any way they wanted and conservatives who didn't want to pay for the system, even though it was ultimately much cheaper to pay for their confinement than for all the costs of the crimes committed by them and the law enforcement, medical and sanitary needs created by their lives in the street.

If we can't get enough agreement to go back to a residential treatment system, then at least we should be able to keep these people medicated so that they are less of a danger to others. The pharmaceutical industry continues to work on developing drugs with fewer side effects, and there have already been vast improvements in the last decade.

Although, personally, I think residential treatment would be better in general, since even with drugs, many of the hardcore mentally ill are incapable of supporting themselves or even living independently.

The pharmaceutical industry continues to work on developing drugs with fewer side effects, and there have already been vast improvements in the last decade.

Until these become generic, cost considerations will forbid their usage on a social engineering scale.

Actually we already have "residential treatment" for the mentally ill. It's called the county jail.

For example, in Los Angeles, after they cut down mental health services for the indigens because of budget problem, these patients started ending up in the county jail. No doubt, they could no longer get their meds, had decompensation of their illness, and got arrested for unruly behaviors.

Now, the county spends a fortune housing these people in one of the "twin towers" county jail. It's a lot more expensive to give them medications in a decompensated state in a jail facility than to give them medications in the community when they are stable.

Politicans are so short-sighted.