On this episode of the WBC Minicast, host John Rocha talks about the need for more mental institutions in the United States, and why they should be used in place of the usual jails, prisons, and mental hospitals.
00:04:40.160So George Costanza understood the upside of a mental institution.
00:04:47.440But look, I understand the difference between TV shows and reality.
00:04:52.000I don't think these places are what they call a hoot.
00:04:57.280Geraldo, Geraldo Rivera, many, many years ago when he was making his bones in this business, he went and exposed Willowbrook, Willowbrook Psychiatric Hospital.
00:05:11.280And, oh, boy, did that just blow the lid off of what was going on in a lot of these mental institutions, at least in the New York tri-state area.
00:05:59.060You know, a lot of people said something has to be done.
00:06:02.920We can't just warehouse these people in these big buildings.
00:06:09.360Well, I think I think the solution was, well, if we can't fix it and we can't get money to fix it or we don't have the capability, we don't even know how to help these people.
00:07:09.640They actually put them in places that were more local.
00:07:15.320Like you wouldn't just ship your mental patients from, you know,
00:07:19.460talking about Long Island, let's say you wouldn't just ship them from Suffolk
00:07:25.520County up, up to a mental hospital anymore.
00:07:29.540miles away you'd keep them close so they'd open up these little uh inpatient outpatient mental
00:07:38.340facilities in neighborhoods sometimes they were a house in a neighborhood and um it was called
00:07:44.920deinstitutionalization but it's a mouthful deinstitutionalization and this was to help
00:07:56.120well it probably sounded like a good idea at the time most things do most things presented to the
00:08:04.860american people are presented in a way that's going to be awesome they don't normally just
00:08:09.300come up and go hey people uh boy strap in this is gonna suck it's always like we got something0.96
00:08:17.360we're working on it's gonna be great the mental patients we're letting them out how is that great0.84
00:08:24.120Well, we're going to put them in your neighborhood in these little like halfway houses and facilities where we call it mainstreaming them.0.96
00:08:34.860And that way they get to go to the corner store or talk to people on the street or cave their head in with a cinder block.0.99
00:08:44.100We don't know actually what they'll do.
00:08:47.620And maybe initially there was a lot more effort being made to to help these people.
00:08:54.300And it wasn't as much keep them away from society because they're a danger.
00:09:00.500It was, hey, we got to help these people out and just shoving them in a giant gothic looking building with gargoyles on the side and barred windows hasn't been doing it.
00:09:10.900so uh that's what it's been for many many many years now well of late uh it seems to have turned
00:09:22.720to the point where there are very violent mental patients running around the streets
00:09:28.740and they are doing unbelievable harm and damage to society and to people you know you want to
00:09:58.260The care went downhill over the course of the years.
00:10:02.580And no one seems to want to address the problem.
00:10:07.300So Trump recently, Thursday, I know he's been talking about it a while, but Thursday signed that EO to start committing these people.
00:10:17.960The police could walk up and if they're committing a crime, arrest them.
00:10:21.480They're not going to be in the precinct for 20 minutes, never mind actually being taken to a facility like the Tombs in New York or Rikers Island or something.
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