Reprinted with permission from AbleChild. 

President Trump’s new executive order Ending Crime and  Disorder on America’s Streets, says putting people into long-term institutions is the “most proven way” to fix public safety and homelessness. But this is just a return to old ideas that have already been shown to fail.

The order instructs the Attorney General to undo current court rules that protect people from being forced into mental health care by ending “consent decrees that limit State and local government’s ability to commit individuals on the streets who are risk to themselves or others.” These current court protections were set up with the help of psychiatry when the industry was caught red-handed in human rights abuses decades ago. Most people don’t remember that psychiatry’s stranglehold began with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s executive order, which tied the government closely to psychiatry. Now, behavioral health groups have powerful influence in state and federal governments, shaping laws and policies.

Both older institutions and community mental health programs have spent enormous amounts of money — at least three states—New York, California, and Connecticut—have official audits, reports, or legislative scrutiny reflecting failures in the behavioral health system for homeless populations along with rising costs of contracts or services. This excludes counting billions more spent on mental health care throughout the United States. The problem with all this spending is that homelessness has only gotten worse and people diagnosed with mental health problems aren’t getting better. But the problem isn’t money. The problem is the way the psychiatric community and the government work together that isn’t necessarily in the nation’s best interest.

President Trump’s executive order focuses on pushing more funding toward drug addiction intervention and weakening civil commitment policies (forcing people into mental health institutions). But these recommendations just reshuffle power among the same groups that continually fail to make a difference or show positive results. Nothing new here. This isn’t just about Trump; many presidents have been influenced by a very powerful psychiatric industry that, in many ways, controls quality of life cradle to grave.

This powerful behavioral health industry, supported by the government, is known not only for hiding data on mental health issues—such as links between psychiatric drugs and violence or suicide—and the role the industry played in the attempted assassination of President Trump.  For example, the alleged assassin’s parents were behavioral health experts.

Providing the psychiatric industry to have more control over American lives is a bad idea, especially in light of the fact that countless people have been seriously harmed by psychiatry’s “chemical imbalance” theory that finally was debunked in 2022. More importantly, the psychiatric industry has continually escaped any accountability for these obvious failures and, still the government continues to fund what can only be described as a fraudulent industry. There is no abnormality that is any psychiatric diagnosis, and the drugs prescribed for “treatment” do not treat any known abnormality and the pharmaceutical companies openly admit they have no idea how the drugs “work” as “treatment” for any psychiatric disorder. Obviously, this raises serious concerns about how President Trump’s executive order is a “solution” to the mental health crisis that the nation is facing. Given the history of forced mental health incarceration, one could argue there will be an unfortunate outcome for human rights and personal freedom.

Both the old institutional model and newer community programs haven’t worked—even with billions of dollars spent. The Landmark case of Willowbrook Institution was a big win for “informed consent,” yet the federal government refuses to honor it. Willowbrook was an example of neglect and abuse, igniting lawsuits and cries to shutter such places. Community programs were supposed to be better, offering medication and housing outside of those hellish hospitals. But hundreds of billions of dollars later, the same problems persist. Too much funding is funneled into forced medication programs and crisis interventions instead of teaching life skills.

The data is clear. The current mental health model isn’t working and resorting back to the old ways won’t be any better. The fact is nobody is getting better. Rather, with each new diagnosis more mind-altering drugs are prescribed. Is it any wonder that the President feels forced to handle the mess that that psychiatric community has created?

Instead of ending homelessness, which is the President’s desire, the recommended fix will just return people to institutions that didn’t work in the past and seriously infringe on personal freedom and human rights. And, worse, these institutions will be run by the very industry that created the problem.  It’s time to address the crisis created by the psychiatric community. The federal government has become a partner in this crisis by continuing to fund the behavioral health industry. A good starting point is to acknowledge that no one is getting better…they’re just getting more drugged.

AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization that has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.

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