Police: Thorty wannabe blocks riders from 39 bus, pummels cops, now faces lengthy penalty

Unfortunately you're right. I also wonder how much the problem is what could be called mental health (which hopes for treatment) versus a mental state that for the person is healthy - but not for the larger society. In other words people who are born evil. I define evil as a state of human chaos instead of applying a moral judgement to the idea. That chaos is manifested in situations such as this fellow. Sometimes the chaos is due to chemical imbalances, or brain matter than was harmed. Sometimes I think that the chaotic nature is one that a person is born with. That person is the one who - if they can't control their nature - needs to be set apart from open society for the rest of their lives. But that winds up being a Catch-22. If a person has a chaotic nature why would they want to control it? Controlling their own chaos goes against their nature.

But then there are the majority of people who are in prison not because they are born with chaotic natures but because chaos - or evil - is nurtured in them whether due to poverty, grossly dysfunctional upbringing, drug and alcohol addiction, PTSD (a mental state that can happen as easily in a peaceful society as in war). If the forces that nurture chaos - or again, evil - were addressed in better ways than we do - then perhaps the budgets for prisons would not need to be in the billions. Imagine putting the billions spent on incarcerating the over 2 million people incarcerated toward guiding, teaching and even training them to be self-sufficient, successful members of open society.

Agreed, this must be very frustrating for the police. The guy is clearly a former hockey player, and thus quite capable at both offence and defence. Some days you have to arrest a 90 yr old 90 lb grama for refusing medical treatment. Some days you have to arrest hockey players.

a) it doesn't necessarily need to be a 'significant untreated mental illness' beyond substance abuse - I don't see anything inconsistent here with alcoholism + personal issues, as opposed to a more chronic condition. I also don't see anything inconsistent with schizophrenia - you can't tell from a freaking police blotter! And I doubt you're a psychiatrist or have any relevant background here.

b) Yes, he should have the book thrown at him. Even if he had a significant untreated psychotic bipolar disorder or something, he needs to face, first, a psychiatrist, then a judge/jury for a serious crime. It's possible and maybe likely that he'd be absolved of responsibility due to mental illness; he certainly deserves that sort of consideration. If he was just drunk and belligerent, he also deserves that consideration - a court needs to decide between jail, rehab, or a psych ward.

c) modern psychiatry is a wonderful thing. If this was a psychotic break and he was too crazy to understand what he was doing, atypical antipsychotics could very well solve the problem entirely. If he was merely psychotic, he'll need a 'life sentence' of drugs and a social worker. He might need to be in a hospital for a few weeks, but behavior like this does not mean he deserves to be locked in a 'luxurious' cage for the rest of his life.

The idea that the severely mentally ill are universally too far-gone to have responsibility for themselves, and that a psychotic break is a crime requiring a life sentence (however 'luxurious') is often phrased as compassion, but it's a human rights violation. I have a serious psychotic mental illness myself, and I'm glad I'm able to rent an apartment, work part-time, and schedule my own appointments and pharmacy visits, rather than await anxiously my daily 30 minute walk around the grounds of McLean.