President Donald Trump said during an interview with The Daily Caller's Reagan Reese that he would consider reopening asylums for people with severe mental illness, asserting that society "can't have these people walking around."
Reese was asking Trump about his crime crackdown in Washington, D.C., part of which involved dealing with mentally ill homeless people who have become a fixture on D.C. streets.
"Would you be open to the government reopening insane asylums for people with serious mental illness?" Reese asked him.
“Yeah I would,” Trump answered, then elaborated on the reasons why.
Trump continued, “Well, they used to have them, and you never saw people like we had, you know, they used to have them. And what happened is states like New York and California that had them, New York had a lot of them. They released them all into society because they couldn’t afford it.
“You know, it’s massively expensive. But we had, they were all over New York. I remember when I was growing up, Creedmoor. They had a place, Creedmoor, they had a lot of them, Bellevue, and they were closed by a certain governor."
“It’s a rough situation," he concluded, "because you can't have these people walking around."
Mental illness is a significant factor in homelessness, because people with severe mental illness can't hold down a job and often have a deep mistrust of authority figures, banks, and other fixtures of modern society.
Part of Trump's D.C. crime crackdown has involved emptying homeless encampments, offering those living in the makeshift dwellings shelters they can go to where they will receive food, a place to sleep, and services they need to become functional members of society again.
This will surely include mental health treatment for many of them, as well as substance abuse treatment, career counseling, job opportunities, and life skills education.
Trump is touting the success of his D.C. crackdown, calling the nation's capital a "crime-free zone."
“I mean, I knew we’re going to do it, but it went faster than I thought… Now, in two weeks, it’s going to be even better. I’m calling it, it’s a crime free zone now,” he continued. “People are going to restaurants that haven’t gone out in four years. They didn’t even want to go in their car because they get the you know, they have..,you see, the carjacking is down 87 percent.”
Even D.C.'s Democrat Mayor, Muriel Bowser, is lauding the efforts of the federal law enforcement in her city after initially resisting them.
“We greatly appreciate the surge of officers that enhance what MPD has been able to do in this city,” she said at a press conference last week.
