Bondi Junction Stabbings

[Meredith1965]

This did not happen a few generations ago. We used to institutionalise the mentally ill for their safety and that of the community. Then we convinced ourselves that it was cheaper and more humane to have care in the community. You can’t fix psychotic illness via talking cures or through medication. It needs to be *constantly* managed and the person controlled.

[stui magpie]

^

Lets not go back to the days of "one flew over the Cuckoos Nest", please. Most people with mental illness are able to be treated in the community with medication and support and lead productive lives. One exception isn't a reason to change. Should we ban kitchen knives as well as lock up mentally ill people?

[Meredith1965]

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was a good story, but basically 60s hippy-libertarian propaganda. I had an uncle in Mont Park in the 70s. It was not like that at all. We do not need to lock up people for being a little strange, but by the time someone is well-known to police for violence as a result of serious mental illness, they need to be institutionalised. From Gargasoulis to this, we pay the price of libertarianism in the murder of innocents.

[What'sinaname]

^

Lets not go back to the days of "one flew over the Cuckoos Nest", please. Most people with mental illness are able to be treated in the community with medication and support and lead productive lives. One exception isn't a reason to change. Should we ban kitchen knives as well as lock up mentally ill people?

Knife, gun. Both inanimate objects. But lethal in the hands of the mentally ill.

[stui magpie]

Your uncle wouldn't recognise Mont Park now, it's all apartments, restaurants and shops, and my local Dan Murphys.

One of the best things Kennett did was close the institutions. Locking people up because they have mental illness is just wrong. Lock em up if they break the law, which this bloke never did until yesterday.

[stui magpie]

^

Lets not go back to the days of "one flew over the Cuckoos Nest", please. Most people with mental illness are able to be treated in the community with medication and support and lead productive lives. One exception isn't a reason to change. Should we ban kitchen knives as well as lock up mentally ill people?

Knife, gun. Both inanimate objects. But lethal in the hands of the mentally ill.

Lethal in the hands of anyone disposed to use them for harm, mentally ill or not.

[Meredith1965]

Your uncle wouldn't recognise Mont Park now, it's all apartments, restaurants and shops, and my local Dan Murphys.

One of the best things Kennett did was close the institutions. Locking people up because they have mental illness is just wrong. Lock em up if they break the law, which this bloke never did until yesterday.

I understood that he was “known to police”. Which usually means either that he was homeless or convicted of something fairly serious. If either is the case, he should have been securely but humanely accommodated. People with serious mental illness are a terrible risk to themselves above all, and care in the community is too often just another word for indifference and neglect.

Kennett was all about saving money by having society abandon its obligations, in my view. Must go via the modern Mont Park one day, though - I remember it from visits long ago.

[stui magpie]

He was homeless, or itinerant, no reason to lock him him up, he'd never been arrested let alone charged, and yes you really should go and have a look. My kids used to go up there and go through the old buildings, now it's completely different.

[pietillidie]

It's a horrible thought to think how unlucky life can be. Just mosying through a shopping mall. I think my wife said one poor sod was a refugee; imagine surviving whatever to be that unlucky you bump into this in Australia of all places. That said, you do wonder how on earth this was not picked up by security quick smart. They catch teens stealing makeup and miss a dishevelled lunatic with a giant knife.

Generally, though, I do think people are over-parsing a very, very unlucky and unlikely event. It's simply randomly tragic.

^
Lets not go back to the days of "one flew over the Cuckoos Nest", please. Most people with mental illness are able to be treated in the community with medication and support and lead productive lives. One exception isn't a reason to change. Should we ban kitchen knives as well as lock up mentally ill people?

Knife, gun. Both inanimate objects. But lethal in the hands of the mentally ill.

Do you really have to go there WiaN? That's twice in one paragraph you've played the same language trick with two elastic terms: 'mentally ill' and 'lethal'. We do actually know that 'lethal' covers anything from one to innumerable deaths, and 'mentally ill' covers anything from moderate depression to dangerous Machievellian psychopathy.

The biggest irony of repeating Cult America in this instance is that Trump is clearly a malignant narcissist, one of the tiny handful of conditions that is indeed dangerous to others. The vast majority of conditions are almost completely self-destructive, including schizophrenia.

I don't know why it doesn't make you cringe yourself, because apart from your identification with the worst of far-right rural religious America you seem normal!

[Meredith1965]

He was homeless, or itinerant, no reason to lock him him up, he'd never been arrested let alone charged, and yes you really should go and have a look. My kids used to go up there and go through the old buildings, now it's completely different.

There is a lot in that phrase “lock him up”. Mental institutions need to be secure, yes, but they do not have to be prison-like. I can’t find much data on his background other than the fact that he was known to be pretty off his trolley and known to police.

There will be more facts to come. But Gargasoulas and this case suggests that we are not handling this stuff well. It would probably help if we did not spend a lot of money on “mental health” issues that are marginal while we let the serious stuff go because the people who need big help don’t tend to seek it.

[Magpietothemax]

Your uncle wouldn't recognise Mont Park now, it's all apartments, restaurants and shops, and my local Dan Murphys.

One of the best things Kennett did was close the institutions. Locking people up because they have mental illness is just wrong. Lock em up if they break the law, which this bloke never did until yesterday.

I understood that he was “known to police”. Which usually means either that he was homeless or convicted of something fairly serious. If either is the case, he should have been securely but humanely accommodated. People with serious mental illness are a terrible risk to themselves above all, and care in the community is too often just another word for indifference and neglect.

Kennett was all about saving money by having society abandon its obligations, in my view. Must go via the modern Mont Park one day, though - I remember it from visits long ago.

Great post Meredith.
As you have said, the point is not to "lock them up" but to provide secure and humane accommodation. That would require a full suite of medical specialists (pscyhiatrist, physician, social worker) etc looking after this person, a carer to take them out etc, no resources spared, until either this person was sufficiently stable as to resume life in the community, or else remain safe in care. The issue is, that because all governments provide inadequate resources for the health system in general, and mental health in particular, mentally ill and potentially unstable people can be imprisoned in an inhuman situation, because of the lack of staff, the poor facilities, etc. Therefore, there is a common picture of an "institution" as a prison house, when of course in a just and humane society it would not be like that.
And you are right, institutions were not closed for any "humane" reasons. That was the pretext used by Kenneot (and likewise by Labor governments) to justify cutting costs and profiteering from the sale of the land of former institutions to property developers. The closure of mental health institutions was a social crime, and has led now to the situation where people with schizophrenia and other psychoses are left to wander the streets with tragic results.

[David]

Institutionalisation seems to be beside the point. Someone who’s homeless needs a proper place to sleep and live first and foremost. There should be enough beds and houses out there for destitute people. Then there ought to be support workers regularly checking in and providing care for the people who require it, like those with mental illness or suffering from drug addiction. Say, once a week, bring the checklist out with all the known homeless people in the area: where’s Joel, does he have enough food, is he in a bad headspace, etc. And if he’s back on the streets, find him and spend some time with him to figure out what’s going on. I don’t care how much it costs; something like this should be the basic minimum standard expected for anyone in society.

We talk about people falling through cracks, but the cracks are more like gaping chasms. That’s the problem here, not that we stopped forcibly locking up those with mental illnesses.

[pietillidie]

It's a horrible thought to think how unlucky life can be. Just mosying through a shopping mall. I think my wife said one poor sod was a refugee; imagine surviving whatever to be that unlucky you bump into this in Australia of all places. That said, you do wonder how on earth this was not picked up by security quick smart. They catch teens stealing makeup and miss a dishevelled lunatic with a giant knife.

Did I hear right, that the security bloke who was killed was the refugee to which I refer? I can't be bothered delving into it because it's too depressing, but either way major public places need proper security for these cases and armed robbery. There can't be just one person on security, surely. You can expect a good handful of dangerous incidents a year, even if not in this league. Anyone know what the story was from a security POV?

[stui magpie]

2 security guards were killed, 1 male 1 female and yes, the male was a Pakistani refugee.

[pietillidie]

^Crikey, both killed. That too is really bad luck. As I say, the thing I feel most looking at this from afar is just how things can happen out of the blue.