[M_Grey]

If it had been a decision concerned with "humane" considerations, there would have been a transition to outpatient treatment, family resources and education, and generally an attempt to change rather than destroy the mental health infrastructure of a country.

The result, which is an ugly combination of the profoundly mentally ill being incarcerated in jails and prisons, often among the general population, and homelessness, is hardly a decision calculated to improve anyone's lives. The population of people with schizophrenia living rough in this country also testifies to the lack of humanity in both the decisions that were made, and total lack of concern for people once they left an institution.

Now, we have to act shocked every time the Jared Lee Laughners of the world act in a tragically predictable course and murder a group of people. It's not shocking, it's predictable; when a family can't do a thing for a loved one who is falling apart in front of their eyes it's true that most of the time it only ends badly for the sick person. Sometimes though, it ends badly for society as a whole.