But I personally think people miss that its a symptom of greater social rot. I've had more issues with antisocial car drivers than any homeless individual. People screaming profanities because I'm crossing the street with the walk signal active, people narrowly missing me as they speed to work. Just yesterday my entire block lost power because a drunk asshole tboned another car going 75mph, killing a family of four while nearly shearing a utility pole.
The reality is that even if the line is drawn with the homeless the undercurrent of social rot is still there and it's not getting better. And I don't see people calling for car drivers to be institutionalized, quite the opposite in most cases even when they commit homicide.
2. Katie Wilson was elected last fucking year, replacing a pro-cop, pro-establishment incumbent, whereas the usual suspects have been bitching about Seattle for decades. Par for the course, of course, the usual newspapers were running hit pieces about how her failed policies have ruined the city a day after she took office, without a shred of self-reflection.
[1] Wasn't so long ago that Seattle's top-paid cop ($390,000/year!) was caught collecting overtime by napping in her car... Illegally parked in the middle of a bus-only lane. (I guess that's also Katie's fault, despite it being a year prior to her election.)
If they are mentally ill and unable to care for themselves or pose a threat to the community because of their mental illness, they should be institutionalized and treated. If they are able to be released into the community after a period of time, checks should be performed to ensure compliance with treatment/medication.
Seems like, after all of these police and prosecutorial "reforms", we are back to deriving why many state powers exist from first principles. Fun to watch in real time.
Atm it seems everyone is trying to figure out how to treat the symptom, and they don't even know why, and they keep completely quiet about the cause of it all. Completely and utter mystery, or framed vague and unfixable enough that they do not have to really address it.
What the Swiss did back in the 80's with the heroin program...that's misinterpreted by US and they're specifically trying to mess it up in application. The Swiss didn't just give lab grade heroin to junkies, they ran a serious mental care and social reintegration program and used the heroin as basically bait. You had access to it but you had to go to their facilities where specialized people could start working with you.
What the US is doing is a mockery of that, they want it to fail so they can say it's not working and they shouldn't even try it in the future.
And I think it's quite clear to basically anyone with two neurons what the cause of it is, but authorities there are going to pretend they do not understand it. That it's some mystical unexplainable cause.
We can start there, then move to address the more structural, long-term problems that contribute to these issues.
An action that reduces drug use by 5% a decade from now is fine, but taking a criminal off the street today yields far greater present value.
You get a much better score if the imprisonment is trying to rehab them, of course.
I’m sure the next objection will be “what, so you’re going to concentrate them in some kind of camp?” Yes because that’s the smart thing to do with a large scale problem. Use scalable solutions.