Many people attacking Asians have known mental health issues

[Lorini]

So what should happen to these people? There's a guy who has been arrested 33 times for minor crimes and his last was to attack an Asian person. Keep in mind that holding people against their will for any amount of time is generally illegal; also people with mental health issues (unlike physical issues) many times don't or can't acknowledge them.

We are against random incarnation. We want people with mental health issues to get help. We can't force them into help.

What do you think should happen?

[LordMortis]

I would think the ultimate goal would be the same as it is for students, "least restrictive environment." How you diagnose? How you get there? I have no clue. You can't force people to address their own mental health but you can force them out of their ability to harm others. That's well outside of my understanding though.

Punishment, as it were, is basically for a lifetime though, unless you can cure the of their illness. If it's a violent criminal activity and you can't address the cause that's some sort of separation for a lifetime.

[Smoove_B]

We've been talking about mental health issues (recognizing, prioritizing, etc, de-stigmatizing, etc...) for a decade+ at this point, and while improvements have been made we still have a long way to go. I do think COVID has really raised awareness that as a nation we don't value the importance of mental health and I'm hoping that one of the things that comes out of all this is a commitment (federal, state, local) to addressing mental health issues. Of course that also will require businesses are partners as well - making sure to support workers and their families that are struggling.

Incarceration is the final step here - we need to be intervening long before that type of scenario is viable.

[hitbyambulance]

i'm of the opinion that mental illness is pervasive in this country (manifesting in many, many forms ranging from domestic abuse to homelessness to conspiracy theory believers to mass shootings to the previous presdency) and there is currently no mechanism in place to address this.

[LawBeefaroni]

Un-de-fund Mental Health? We've been underfunding MH for decades. I can't stand in front of the ER for more than 20 minutes, probably, without seeing a severe case going in or leaving. And those are just the extreme cases. The smouldering mental health issues of "normal" people are going to be next.



This is not the cause of increased violence against Asians and Asian Americans, however. The rise in violence in general may be attributable, but the shift of focus to Asians is driven by media and politics.

Two different problems, mental health violence and targeted hate crimes.

[Lorini]

So one feeds into the other. Mentally disturbed people see the increased media coverage and then think it's something they want to do/act out on.

Here is the relevant NYT article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/nyre ... lness.html

[Blackhawk]

Un-de-fund Mental Health? We've been underfunding MH for decades.

That would be a great start. And up the standards for mental health professionals. In regards to me and my son, I've generally had good experiences with psychiatrists (IE - doctors), save for one who was a low-effort pill pusher. Therapists, on the other hand, have been all over the board, from knowledgeable, insightful people who have genuinely wanted to help and have made a difference, to lazy, incompetent idiots who had no idea what to do and ended up wasting many, many hours of our time.

Then realize that people with mental health issues often have trouble maintaining steady employment as a result, and are less likely to have insurance. Respond to that by making mental health care more available to the poor (if only there were some sort of universal health option...) and de-limiting what can be done with Medicare/Medicaid. As it stands, Medicare/Medicaid are very, very picky about what types of therapies they'll pay for, causing some people to be sitting right next to a 'cure' that they're not allowed to have, and are instead shunting into some generic program that doesn't do anything to really help them. Seriously mentally ill people going to a psychiatrist and being told by Medicare/aid that they only qualify for a social worker is shameful (not that social workers can't be good or competent, but some things are beyond their expertise.)

[LawBeefaroni]

Also, maybe keep tabs on murderers you let out of prison.

From the one NYC attack:

A homeless man who was out on parole for killing his mother was arrested and charged with a hate crime early Wednesday morning in connection with a violent attack on a Filipino-American woman near Times Square, the police said.

Whether that's a criminal justice system issue or a mental health issue, it needs to be addressed.

[Isgrimnur]

He's such a low risk to reoffend. He only had one mother.

[LawBeefaroni]

Also, maybe keep tabs on murderers you let out of prison.

From the one NYC attack:

A homeless man who was out on parole for killing his mother was arrested and charged with a hate crime early Wednesday morning in connection with a violent attack on a Filipino-American woman near Times Square, the police said.

Whether that's a criminal justice system issue or a mental health issue, it needs to be addressed.

[Lorini]

From the NYT article I linked:

"At the same time, the pandemic strained a criminal justice system that has long struggled to deliver treatment to mentally ill people who run afoul of the law. Social services cut back in-person meetings. Unemployment soared. The number of single homeless adults reached record levels.

“People’s fuses were much shorter,” said Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former high-ranking official in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. “If you were an angry person filled with hate, it seems like it didn’t take much to set you off.”"

Many of us don't want to pay for jails filled with people who basically are sick with a psychiatric, diagnosable illness. We also don't feel that jail is the right place for them because without treatment they'll just end up in jail again. However some mentally ill people resist treatment. Do they then 'deserve' what they get? At the same time, most of us want to be safe. We shouldn't be subject to violence by mentally ill people. The normative solution has been to keep them in jail. They then become ticking time bombs, waiting to be let out of jail and become violent yet again.

This is crazy in my opinion.