More casualties of the one trillion dollar military budget: Budget cutbacks in California expose mor

[unhappycamper]

Budget cutbacks in California expose more mentally ill to police
By Cynthia Herbert | Sacramento Bee
Posted on Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Tracy Sinclair Feather's life was spinning out of control again, and the midtown woman was suicidal.

In the past, family members said, she would have admitted herself to the Sacramento County mental hospital, where she frequently got care. But the facility's crisis center had closed because of budget cuts, so Feather called police and reported that she wanted to hurt herself.

By the end of that day in early May, she was in the Sacramento County jail, facing charges of assaulting a peace officer and possible prison time.

The system that had rescued Feather time and again had broken down, family members said, and she was behind bars in lieu of $750,000 bail. Two months later, she remains in jail, awaiting a court date.

It is a scenario that psychiatric specialists and police predict will become more commonplace as the effects of wrenching budget cuts in county mental health services over the last year take hold. Already, police and hospitals are reporting increases in encounters with mentally ill people.



unhappycamper comment: This trend is but a fraction of what has been occurring around the country. Teachers laid off, crumbling infrastructure, homeless people and families out on the streets, and the Veterans Administration still trying to duck their responsibilities to our nation's veterans.

And meanwhile war criminals walk the streets.