After 37 years, Washington D.C. gets mental health system

[Judi Lynn]

After 37 years, Washington D.C. gets mental health system
Reuters – 13 mins ago...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The nation's capital regained control of its mental health system on Thursday when a federal judge approved a settlement in a 37-year-old class-action lawsuit, the mayor's office said.

The District of Columbia's mental health system had been under court supervision since patients at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington's psychiatric center, accused the capital in 1974 of not providing enough community-based mental health services.

Under the settlement approved by U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan, the District is committed to adding 300 affordable housing units and to expanding job services for adults with mental illness, the office of Mayor Vincent Gray said.

The District also will boost treatment services for children in the home and the community.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/37-years-washington-d-c-gets-mental-health-224624503.html

[MindMover]

1. and we wonder why we have people walking around shooting people .....

nah, we don't need any more mental health...........

[Posteritatis]

2. "Mental health problems" and "violent criminal" are not synonymous. (nt)

[MindMover]

3. In my reading on this subject, I find that most people who think, say that....

violence and criminality are not normal behaviors, hence our laws which seek to protect the majority from this minority.....

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp068229

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Top_Story&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=38174

if you care not to read these links, here is a synopsis......

The study showed that patients with serious mental illness — those with schizophrenia, major depression, or bipolar disorder — were two to three times as likely as people without such an illness to be assaultive. In absolute terms, the lifetime prevalence of violence among people with serious mental illness was 16%, as compared with 7% among people without mental illness. Although not all types of psychiatric illness are associated with violence — anxiety disorders, for example, do not seem to increase the risk — and although most people with schizophrenia, major depression, or bipolar disorder do not commit assaultive acts, the presence of such a disorder is significantly associated with an increased risk of violence.

[MichiganVote]

4. Good. They can move Congress into the system 2morrow.