The would-be inmates are still in charge

A recently released letter from the British Columbia Urban Mayors’ Caucus gives the impression that municipal policing in the province has gone to hell in a handbasket.

The big-city mayors reported on the subject of repeat offenders; the numbers tabulated are staggering, but not really surprising to anyone who keeps up with daily news events. One repeat offender had generated 248 police incidents in a two-year period in Victoria, where he’s been charged 32 times in the capital city and 35 elsewhere on Vancouver Island.

The charges included minor theft, mischief, uttering threats, assaults and possession of stolen property, and resulted in 22 convictions.

He’s only one of those who the mayors referred to as chronic offenders who are involved in a ridiculous catch-andrelease-hide-and-seek shell game; all suffering from drug addiction or mental illness, and usually both. This terrible situation is not limited to the big cities, but is in every community across just about every country to varying degrees.

Those of a certain vintage can remember the civil-rights era of the 1960s and 1970s when there were detailed media reports from mental health institutions in several countries regarding mistreatment of inmates, examples that ultimately decided a change of mental health treatment was necessary.

Eventually just about all institutions were closed, and patients were to be treated in their own communities; either at home, halfway houses, clinics or hospitals.

It became known as deinstitutionalization, and was implemented around the world by pandering politicians and wellmeaning experts who were themselves suffering from highly inflamed imaginations.

Tragically, it created even more problems with a huge amount of mentally ill people resorting to self-medication and falling through the bureaucratic cracks. A direct result of those decisions all those decades ago can be seen in the homeless populations in downtowns worldwide, and in horrendous numbers of recidivism reported by the Urban Mayor’s Caucus.

There used to be a saying that the inmates are running the asylum, but even with no asylums these days, those who should be inmates are still in charge.

Bernie Smith Parksville