A licence for mayhem
From Bernie Reeves
Sir: Rod Liddle (‘The joy of stigma’, 3 September) is correct to point out what happens when lobbying groups force the mentally ill back into society. In America, the ‘homeless’ problem was almost entirely thrust on cities by the efforts of advocates who followed the theories concocted in the 1960s by the English psychiatrist R.D. Laing. His movement maintained that schizoids were more in touch with reality than ‘normal’ people.
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one example of the manifestation of public acceptance of the insane as hero. Nurse Ratched and the doctors in the ‘straight’ world were depicted as ‘crazy’, and R.P. McMurphy, the schizophrenic protagonist, represented reality.
In the 1970s, advocates of this perverted ‘human rights’ theory were successful in their desire to empty psychiatric hospitals. They were egged on by legal activists who worked behind the scenes to protect the homeless by lobbying to abolish loitering and vagrancy laws in states and cities. The goal was to prove that capitalist America had failed. As a result the streets filled with the mentally ill, alcoholics and drugusers.
In my city, Raleigh, North Carolina, it was discovered that of the 85 or so ‘homeless’, 80 were formerly treated in hospitals for mental or addiction disorders. When confronted with these facts, care-giving officials and activists said there was no problem if the ‘homeless’ took their medication. But most did not. They menaced people on the street while police stood by helplessly.
Bernie Reeves
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
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