Seattle Faces Backlash After Easing on Crimes Involving Mental Illness
This is a question that will likely sound incredibly offensive, but only because I don’t know of a polite way to say it. But: What’s wrong with the mentally ill in America specifically?<p>It seems like you can’t walk down a single city block in the US without seeing someone screaming at something that’s not there, someone naked and wrapped in blankets, someone saying the earth is about to be destroyed by aliens/god/satan/whatever, someone screaming that they’re going to kill you (and looking quite serious about it), someone pissing on a wall without concern, etc.<p>I’ve seen this <i>nowhere else</i> in the world. I’ve seen homeless who are clearly mentally disturbed to some extent, but they’re usually silently searching for a meal or something without harassing or terrorizing anyone.<p>I know the go to excuse is mental health care in America sucks, but that can’t be the entirety of the problem. I’ve been to some incredibly poor places where basic health care isn’t even an option for most people, yet I still never worried about walking down city streets like I do in America.<p>What makes American cities so particularly bad and absolutely full of people who seem to be bad movie caricatures of mentally ill homeless people?<p>Edit: I am American and lived there most of my life, so it’s nothing to do with simply visiting a bad place. It’s something I saw everywhere