This is the best commentary I’ve read on the Neely-Penny case. The problem at base is, indeed, involuntary commitment or the lack of it. The case was never about race, although some want to divert it there for their own agendas. New York City, and particularly the subways, are teeming with the mentally ill. Not all, of course, are dangerous, but some are, and there seems to be no legal way to prevent their having free rein to terrorize the rest of us. We all understand the need for properly controlled institutions and that we should never return to the old cruel asylums. But it is also cruel to leave people to live on the street who cannot care for themselves. It is also cruel to the rest of the population who has to try and avoid the violently insane who churn through the legal system. Neely had been arrested 42 times. Unfair to him, to the police who have to keep arresting him, and to everyone who had to fear what he might do next.
I hope Ritchie Torres and/or Eric Adams can do something about this, but I expect our judiciary is going to have to revisit the whole patient rights standards that have led to this sorry, and dangerous, state of affairs.
This article at least lays out the history of how we got here, and may be a first step to reevaluation.
A good and quite fair overview of the problem. I'd add one driving factor to the analysis: the role of the ACLU in advocating very strongly for the individual right to refuse treatment. It was the ACLU, in fact, in cooperation with then Governor of California Ronald Reagan, whose voice was strongest in urging closure of the then quite horrific institutions -- in exchange, as you mention about JFK, for money that would pay for better institutions in the future.
I don't know if the ACLU has changed its stance, but a "right" that the seriously mentally ill can meaningfully invoke while lacking ordinary reasoning capacity is a mirage of what liberty guarantees. And the consequences of that ruin of an argument are all around us.
But that is not the only damage that's been done by well-meaning advocates. Like all prosecutors, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has fundamental discretion to bring a case to trial or not. While I have to assume his office believed that Mr. Neely was a worthy victim, DA Bragg was tone deaf to the fact that Mr. Penny was acting as any reasonable person in that situation would. The measure of any potential negligence in his actions was far outweighed by the recurring problem of the homeless mentally ill in New York's subways and elsewhere.
Bragg's mistaken view of his city's residents is now obvious, but it comes from a place of misplaced empathy. Bragg's focus was on Mr. Neely, and it obscured any feeling for the people who ride the subway every day. How could any jury of Mr. Penny's peers not have seen that?
I hope it's now time to fulfill the promises of those original bargains, and to see that the billions of dollars being spent on so many programs asserted to help those with serious mental illness have always had a logical and socially beneficial end that has been ignored.
One of the most vexing problems in a country founded on the principles of individual freedom and human rights is the balance that must be struck between the rights of the individual and the needs of the community. We have several flash points here, most prominent being the issue of the Second Amendment, gun rights, and community safety.
But any increasingly large mass society will inevitably have an increasing number of the dispossessed, the homeless, the broken, the mentally ill. Throughout most of human history this was largely a local problem handled by local people in their towns and villages. Their solutions ranged from caring to callous, but the issue seldom emerged into a national one.
The advent of ‘insane asylums', which were often places of unimaginable cruelty became the focus of Dorothea Dix in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, resulting in significant improvements. But it was and remains clear that local solutions are increasingly inadequate in the face of the sheer numbers of those needing assistance of some kind existing today.
It is a national problem, requiring a national solution. Conservative ‘up by the bootstrap’ thinking is not going to make it go away. Liberal focus on individual rights as opposed the needs of community safety aren’t going to resolve it either.
While I agree, it wouldn’t have helped in this situation and he likely was hospitalized before. Most states as the author says have too short of hold periods where the medication hasn’t even taken effect (if they take the meds) before they release them back on the streets.
Then those people are on the streets, with likely no money to fill their prescriptions that the hospital gave them, so they likely don’t get out of their episode and in some cases might be worse off than before they went in. I’ve seen this happen many times and the system and process to how we treat these people needs to be fundamentally changed from the ground up.
The policy of closing mental hospitals was quickly implemented because it saved public funds. Alternatives were poorly funded. Another result of this "policy" is the impact on psychiatric wards in hospitals. Violent patients go from the jail to the hospital and back again and/or the streets.
We cannot have meaningful discussion about this and many other public issues because of the invasion of unintended consequences from feminist induced empathy. As Gurwinder masterfully argues, empathy misleadingly has overrun psychology and the justice system.
As someone who has navigated the involuntary commitment process with family members this article hits the nail on the head. I just want to say how appreciative I am that you took the time to explain the nuances and serious issues with this process. I truly hope the right people see this and change comes about.
It is unacceptable that we cannot fix this horrific system.
This is the best commentary I’ve read on the Neely-Penny case. The problem at base is, indeed, involuntary commitment or the lack of it. The case was never about race, although some want to divert it there for their own agendas. New York City, and particularly the subways, are teeming with the mentally ill. Not all, of course, are dangerous, but some are, and there seems to be no legal way to prevent their having free rein to terrorize the rest of us. We all understand the need for properly controlled institutions and that we should never return to the old cruel asylums. But it is also cruel to leave people to live on the street who cannot care for themselves. It is also cruel to the rest of the population who has to try and avoid the violently insane who churn through the legal system. Neely had been arrested 42 times. Unfair to him, to the police who have to keep arresting him, and to everyone who had to fear what he might do next.
I hope Ritchie Torres and/or Eric Adams can do something about this, but I expect our judiciary is going to have to revisit the whole patient rights standards that have led to this sorry, and dangerous, state of affairs.
This article at least lays out the history of how we got here, and may be a first step to reevaluation.
A good and quite fair overview of the problem. I'd add one driving factor to the analysis: the role of the ACLU in advocating very strongly for the individual right to refuse treatment. It was the ACLU, in fact, in cooperation with then Governor of California Ronald Reagan, whose voice was strongest in urging closure of the then quite horrific institutions -- in exchange, as you mention about JFK, for money that would pay for better institutions in the future.
I don't know if the ACLU has changed its stance, but a "right" that the seriously mentally ill can meaningfully invoke while lacking ordinary reasoning capacity is a mirage of what liberty guarantees. And the consequences of that ruin of an argument are all around us.
But that is not the only damage that's been done by well-meaning advocates. Like all prosecutors, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has fundamental discretion to bring a case to trial or not. While I have to assume his office believed that Mr. Neely was a worthy victim, DA Bragg was tone deaf to the fact that Mr. Penny was acting as any reasonable person in that situation would. The measure of any potential negligence in his actions was far outweighed by the recurring problem of the homeless mentally ill in New York's subways and elsewhere.
Bragg's mistaken view of his city's residents is now obvious, but it comes from a place of misplaced empathy. Bragg's focus was on Mr. Neely, and it obscured any feeling for the people who ride the subway every day. How could any jury of Mr. Penny's peers not have seen that?
I hope it's now time to fulfill the promises of those original bargains, and to see that the billions of dollars being spent on so many programs asserted to help those with serious mental illness have always had a logical and socially beneficial end that has been ignored.
A very thoughtful and well-balanced piece.
One of the most vexing problems in a country founded on the principles of individual freedom and human rights is the balance that must be struck between the rights of the individual and the needs of the community. We have several flash points here, most prominent being the issue of the Second Amendment, gun rights, and community safety.
But any increasingly large mass society will inevitably have an increasing number of the dispossessed, the homeless, the broken, the mentally ill. Throughout most of human history this was largely a local problem handled by local people in their towns and villages. Their solutions ranged from caring to callous, but the issue seldom emerged into a national one.
The advent of ‘insane asylums', which were often places of unimaginable cruelty became the focus of Dorothea Dix in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, resulting in significant improvements. But it was and remains clear that local solutions are increasingly inadequate in the face of the sheer numbers of those needing assistance of some kind existing today.
It is a national problem, requiring a national solution. Conservative ‘up by the bootstrap’ thinking is not going to make it go away. Liberal focus on individual rights as opposed the needs of community safety aren’t going to resolve it either.
Yeah. Involuntary commitment might have prevented this situation. Especially given Neely’s record. 👍🏼
While I agree, it wouldn’t have helped in this situation and he likely was hospitalized before. Most states as the author says have too short of hold periods where the medication hasn’t even taken effect (if they take the meds) before they release them back on the streets.
Then those people are on the streets, with likely no money to fill their prescriptions that the hospital gave them, so they likely don’t get out of their episode and in some cases might be worse off than before they went in. I’ve seen this happen many times and the system and process to how we treat these people needs to be fundamentally changed from the ground up.
The policy of closing mental hospitals was quickly implemented because it saved public funds. Alternatives were poorly funded. Another result of this "policy" is the impact on psychiatric wards in hospitals. Violent patients go from the jail to the hospital and back again and/or the streets.
See, https://www.gurwinder.blog.p.how-empathy-makes-us-cruel-and-crazy
We cannot have meaningful discussion about this and many other public issues because of the invasion of unintended consequences from feminist induced empathy. As Gurwinder masterfully argues, empathy misleadingly has overrun psychology and the justice system.
As someone who has navigated the involuntary commitment process with family members this article hits the nail on the head. I just want to say how appreciative I am that you took the time to explain the nuances and serious issues with this process. I truly hope the right people see this and change comes about.
It is unacceptable that we cannot fix this horrific system.