XPost: alt.survival, talk.politics.guns, nyc.transit   
   XPost: alt.journalism, soc.culture.african.american   
   From: hypocrisy@nytimes.com   
      
   Accused subway slasher Kemal Rideout’s rap sheet goes back 15 years,   
   including attempted rape, assault, criminal mischief and forcible   
   touching, plus a serious history of mental illness.   
      
   For New Yorkers wondering why he was still walking around, the Legislature   
   has a kind of answer: It just passed the Clean Slate Act, automatically   
   removing older offenses from the public record.   
      
   So (if Gov. Kathy Hochul signs the bill) the next time a lunatic left to   
   roam maims or kills, the public won’t realize how badly the system has   
   failed.   
      
   What state lawmakers won’t do is address the disastrous “mental health   
   revolving door.”   
      
   Rideout, now charged with three counts of felony assault, has five prior   
   arrests in New York; in four of them (including the rape case), per law   
   enforcement sources, he got off by pleading “not responsible” by reason of   
   mental disease or defect.   
      
   Which didn’t send him in for mandatory treatment until he was no longer a   
   public menace, but rapidly back to the streets.   
      
   Even his own aunt says he’s crazy.   
      
   Yet he has been free to terrorize New Yorkers.   
      
   Time and again, state lawmakers have refused to make it easier for   
   families, law enforcement or the courts to involuntarily commit   
   dangerously mentally ill individuals for psychiatric treatment.   
      
   Instead, Albany’s given us no-bail laws that let wrongdoers (sane or not)   
   avoid jail until trial.   
      
   They’re enrolled in alternatives-to-incarceration programs where   
   compliance isn’t enforced.   
      
   Heck, the only reason Rideout is sitting in Rikers today is that he counts   
   as a “flight risk” because when nabbed, he was carrying an overnight bag   
   stuffed with clothing and toiletries.   
      
   It’s long past time to nail this revolving door shut: Any verdict   
   involving dangerous mental illness should automatically lead to prolonged   
   commitment — with the state funding the thousands of inpatient psychiatric   
   beds needed to make good on such a rule.   
      
   We do these sad souls no good by turning them out on the streets.   
      
   Think of Jordan Neely, dead on an F train though he was on the city’s “Top   
   50” roster of homeless people who desperately needed help — people who   
   repeatedly cycle in and out of treatment and shelters.   
      
   Mayor Eric Adams is pushing to involuntarily hospitalize more homeless New   
   Yorkers with chronic and untreated mental illness; state and city   
   lawmakers should back him up.   
      
   And, yes, expand his pilot B-HEARD pilot program, a non-police response to   
   911 calls involving suspected mentally ill persons.   
      
   No one wants the jails and prisons to substitute for proper treatment of   
   the dangerously mentally ill.   
      
   But doing nothing instead, and leaving them loose to endanger the public   
   and themselves, is madness in its own right.   
      
   Barbara Brooks   
   23 June, 2023   
      
   Violent, mentally ill people with repeated offenses need to be locked up   
   permanently in a facility where they can work, get mental health treatment   
   and grow their own food for exercise.  A lot of these guys could work and   
   stay out of trouble in the right environment.  The state could provide   
   security while a variety of public and private groups could run the   
   facilites so that families  and patients have a choice. However, they are   
   a danger to the public and do not belong in jails, but must be babysat,   
   probably for the rest of their lives.  Hopefully businesses can be found   
   to employ them so they can help pay child support, offset the costs and   
   earn spending money.   
      
   https://nypost.com/2023/06/23/nyc-subway-slasher-cause-to-close-mental-   
   health-revolving-door/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)