When did they finally stop letting religious freaks run the looney bins?

I wish they were still locking up heathens like you.

Pretty sure AHS is fiction

The State Hospital in Austin, Texas is Civil War era.

The one I worked at, Wichita Falls, Texas in the 1920s

Yes, we now see anyone religious as backwards medieval bogeymen, and crazy folks now all sleep under interstates and wander aimlessly through our cities during the day. We've come quite far as a civilized society, in our newfound enlightenment, haven't we?

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crazy folks now all sleep under interstates and wander aimlessly through our cities during the day. We've come quite far as a civilized society, in our newfound enlightenment, haven't we?

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more Reagan's fault than anti-religious folks. He should have never ever ever shut down the government run hospitals.

Though that is a topic for a crazier board.

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more Reagan's fault than anti-religious folks. He should have never ever ever shut down the government run hospitals.

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I wasn't suggesting it was an anti-religious deal, more just making a slam on the OP "point."

It's a weird complex issue, and I'm not sure "fault" can be assigned to any one individual - certainly not Reagan.

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One month prior to the election, President Carter had signed the Mental Health Systems Act, which had proposed to continue the federal community mental health centers program, although with some additional state involvement. Consistent with the report of the Carter Commission, the act also included a provision for federal grants “for projects for the prevention of mental illness and the promotion of positive mental health,” an indication of how little learning had taken place among the Carter Commission members and professionals at NIMH. With President Reagan and the Republicans taking over, the Mental Health Systems Act was discarded before the ink had dried and the CMHC funds were simply block granted to the states. The CMHC program had not only died but been buried as well.

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Under President Ronald Reagan, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act repeals Carter's community health legislation and establishes block grants for the states, ending the federal government's role in providing services to the mentally ill. Federal mental-health spending decreases by 30 percent.

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The concerns of the general public were also mobilized in the context of fear over the possibility of a patient committing a violent or otherwise anti-social act. Media attention paid to the problems of the mental health system tended to concentrate in two areas: the growing homelessness problem of the early 1980s and the possibility of criminal acts committed by deinsitutionalized patients. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people concentrated in the inner cities. With the rise of gentrification during the 1980s, many of them became displaced from their relatively affordable housing and were unable to find new accommodations. Many of these patients had lost contact with family members and were unable to work, and many did not have health insurance. Thus, they were unable to receive mental health services in the private sector. Media coverage of the growing homeless problem helped to pressure legislators in many states to rewrite commitment laws to extend the net and make the streets "safer."

This media attention played into, and supported, the growing perception of violent crime as a problem in the United States. The Reagan Administration answered this general alarm by calling for quick and severe punishment of offenders. For those offenders who were not mentally ill, prison was normally seen as the solution (Gans, 1995). For the mentally ill however, involuntary committment seemed the best answer. Either way, quick removal of individuals threatening the social order fit well with the administration's "law and order" stance (LaFond and Durham, 1992, 114).

The new laws, however, were not intended to make it easier to commit the dangerous mentally ill. Rather, the new laws had more general application and made it easier to commit those only considered a threat (Lafond & Durham, 1992, 118). In addition to this, many of the existing liberal justices began to rule on a "right of treatment" clause rather than a straight civil libertarian viewpoint. The result was that at both the state and federal level, the court became increasingly reluctant to strike down legislation that broadened the definition of who was eligible for involuntary commitment (119). Again, this more stringent approach meshed well with the "law and order" stance taken by the administration.

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It just became politically incorrect in the 70s to lock crazy folks up.

So now they roam free

Where they are a danger to themselves and others.

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This.

Asylums and sanitariums. They of course had their problems. But the other side of the coin is what we have now. Crazy homeless wandering the streets.

The only time they are properly cared for is when they do horrendous Andrea Yates type shite. Or a mass shooting like the Arizona or Colorado shooters.

Some people just need to warehoused. That is a tough thing for people to stomach and wrap their heads around. Some people are so unstable that they should be under lock and key for life. Reagan was brought up. John Hinckley's release was wrong IMO. Psych patients are notoriously non compliant with meds. Hinckley may be an old man now and too old to be a threat. If not, who is certain he won't go off meds and start stalking Jodie Foster? Or some poor woman or kid that looks like Foster in Taxi Driver.