&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Trump's latest wild plan: Reopen 'insane asylums' like Joker's Arkham amid his crime crackdown. Here's what he said")
What will Donald Trump do next? The answer is, reopen Arkham Asylum-like (Yes! The one Batman's arch foe Joker was locked up in) mental institutions and stuff people he believes have "serious mental illnesses" into them. On Monday (Sep 1), during an interview, the US president was asked if he was "open to the government reopening insane asylums for people with serious mental illness?". To this, he said, "Yeah, I would," before going on one of his signature rants and peddling half-lies.
What did Trump say?
Trump said that he was open to reopening previously shuttered "insane asylums" as part of his now infamous crime crackdown. He then went on a rant about the alleged lawlessness in California and New York. He claimed — wrongly — that states like New York and California used to have "a lot" of insane asylums which were shut down, and the mentally ill people were released into society. "They released them all into society because they couldn’t afford it, you know, it’s massively expensive," said Trump.
Calling it a "rough situation," he added, "They were all over New York...They had a place, Creedmoor, they had a lot of them, Bellevue, and they were closed by a certain governor. And I remember when they did, it was a long time ago, and I said, ‘They didn't release these people?’ And they did. They released them into society, and that's what you have. It's a rough, it's a rough situation."
Contrary to Trump's claims, both the Creedmoor Psychiatric Centre and the Bellevue Hospital in New York are still operational.
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Was there any truth in Trump's claims?
Yes. According to the Daily Beast, since the 1950s, the federal and New York state governments began defunding mental health services and shuttering mental hospitals. The decades-long process of deinstitutionalisation was ramped up in the 1970s amid the financial crisis brought about by stagflation.
However, not all people were released into society. A lot of the people held in these asylums were there under court orders and were transferred to other facilities. Many were also moved to prisons.
In his recent crackdown on crime, Trump has sought to blame the homeless population. Recently, he even issued a call to the homeless in Washington, DC to "move out IMMEDIATELY" or face eviction. He also demanded that they must be relocated "far from the Capital."
