Thursday, January 21, 2010

Violence and fraud

Four and a half years ago on July 12, 2005, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office announced with great fanfare that a new law would solve the problems of mentally ill felons in nursing homes. Only a month earlier, Emerald Park Health Care Center had been closed for gross mismanagement, but the new Vulnerable Adults Protection Act was sure to make Grandma and Grampa safer in the nursing home from evil parolees and sex offenders.

Today's Chicago Tribune reports that Somerset Place nursing home, which has 66 felons (we're shocked - shocked!) among its 400 residents, will be shut down due to violence and abuse. So much for the Vulnerable Adults Protection Act.

On the other hand, think about how well this law served Daniel J. Cuneo, Ph.D. for the last four and a half years. Without it, Dr. Cuneo would never have been awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in state consulting contracts!

But wait... Cuneo's "clinical expertise" in identifying dangerous people was exactly what was supposed to protect Grandma and Grandpa, and it sure didn't work if they were living at Somerset Place. Guess what folks? Dan Cuneo's a fraud, and the state is wasting our tax dollars by paying him anything.

We want to believe bad people are just sick, and they can be "diagnosed" and "treated" rather than punished. Guess what folks? Forensic psychiatry is a fraud, and we are wasting too many people's lives by believing in it.

The mentally ill simply are not "patients" who belong in nursing homes or hosiptals, and they are not "sick" in the same sense as people with medical diseases. If we don't stop kidding ourselves, we're going to have to see Grandma get raped and Grandpa beat up.

And we're going to have to keep getting ripped off big-time by Dan Cuneo and his ilk.

2 comments:

  1. The cure for violence in nursing homes is for a big Irish cop to go into the nursing home and club and arrest anybody committing any crime therein. The Dan Cuneo's have actually CREATED a very virulent class of criminal in our state, to wit: criminals who know in advance they will not be punished properly due to mental illness excuses provided by Cuneo and his pals. These criminals have free license to assault, shoplift, rob, rape and murder. Many of them have done so repatedly for years. Many have committed HUNDREDS of felonies within madhouses, nusrsing homes and other flops. At Chester Mental Health Center some of these criminals would committ half a dozen FELONY ASSAULTS per year and were NEVER punished. Most of these criminals were liberated by Cuneo, et. al. to continue their careers of unpunished mayhem in the streets and wherever else they went, including nursing homes.

    Most "right-thinking" people reading this will accuse you, Randy. of hyperbole when you write of grandma being raped and grandpa being beaten. They have no idea how sincerely literal and serious your observations are.

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  2. Thanks for your validation Rodney. I apologize on behalf of the culture and the social order I am a part of, for the fact that you have to know these things.

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