I will need to sit down and watch the entire video, I skipped through it. Yes we do see those sights in Seattle as we drive through. And it may make sense to make a place for them where they can be helped, and clean up the city, but removing people legally from where they want to be? How would you make a case for moving them to a place like that, even if it were to help them? And you're not dealing with people making the best decisions for themselves already. It's a tough one.
The video focuses a bit on the top 100 "frequent flyer" petty drug possession & disorderly conduct & petty theft individuals on a revolving door "catch and release", often arrested, rarely prosecuted or incarcerated, not the merely homeless & loitering.
Most of those people are addicts or multiple psychiatric diagnosis people in need of some sort of intervention/treatment/ rescue, not incarceration, even though arresting them for actual misbehavior may be the entry point to getting those services, if Seattle decides to follow the model used in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Lack of full law enforcement and lack of options leads to just churning the population rather than dealing with the problem. When given a choice between in-patient treatment initially in a locked facility with counseling and outpatient support after detox & treatment for months/years/lifetime thereafter most choose treatment over jail, and many or even most pull their lives together a bit and start making better choices, and it's measurable in the statistics.
The movie is a bit heavy handed, makes it look as if the Seattle City Council has been caught flat-footed and is unable or unwilling to take the issue head on. I'm not sure how much truth there is to that point of view- I find it hard to believe that Seattle's government is really as dysfunctional as presented. I do believe that beat cops tasked with managing the problem as arrest-only tools could eventually get to be as burned out as depicted. Those dealing with addicts and mentally unwell people have a high burn out rate no matter where they are in the social-services chain.
I know a former city policeman (in Worcester Massachusetts) who eventually became a psychiatric nurse dealing with addicts and mentally ill in a hospital setting, but eventually got out of it altogether, and is now teaching science at a private middle-school (as if THAT population were easy to deal with!) It's tough to watch chronically ill and misbehaving people deteriorate over time, and all too often die from their conditions.
My family member who is currently working in an outpatient psychiatric clinic that includes MAT management services for addicts and dual-diagnosis people has seen/known some of her patients for decades, in both locked ward in patient and out patient settings. A patient once thanked her for giving her the opportunity to have a life, despite ongoing mental illness, former homelessness & opiate addiction. That patient was a teenager (brought in to the psych ward by the aforementioned policeman) when first treated, now in her 40s with a kid in high school, and a job, but still needs the services to keep it all together. She's one of the success stories. There are many other stories that didn't end so well. Just leaving psychotic and/or addicted people to fend for themselves on the streets isn't a great option.
