http://www.psychlaws.org/GeneralResources/article14.htm A right to mental illness?

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New York's death toll is mounting because of untreated mental illness. Psychotic individuals who are not taking medication that is needed to control the symptoms of their schizophrenia or manic-depressive disorder are both victims and perpetrators. Finally, however, Gov. Pataki, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and other leaders of the state Legislature are working together to pass a partial solution to this problem.

The latest victim was Rodney Mason, a psychotic man who was shot after stabbing a police officer on Tuesday. At least four other individuals suffering from severe mental illness have been shot by New York police in recent months. Paul Maxwell, standing naked in the street, was killed when he tried to swing a bat at a police officer. Ronald Kessler, diagnosed with schizophrenia, was killed when he used a hammer to attack an officer. Kevin Cerbelli was killed after he entered a Queens police station and stabbed an officer with a screwdriver. Charles Stevens was shot by police on the Long Island railroad after he brandished a sword. Individuals with untreated severe mental illness have become even more prominent as perpetrators of homicides. When Andrew Goldstein, who was not being treated for his schizophrenia, pushed Kendra Webdale to her death under a subway train in January, he became merely the most recent in a long line of seriously mentally ill New Yorkers who have committed senseless homicides: Colin Ferguson, Reuben Harris, Mary Ventura, Juan Gonzalez, Kevin McKiever, Michael Vernon, Steven Smith, Christopher Battiste, Jorge Delgado, etc. They were all severely mentally ill and not being treated for their mental illness. Nationally, a Department of Justice study indicates that there are nearly one thousand similar homicides in the United States each year.

Homicides are not the entire story. They do not include the approximately three thousand New Yorkers who are in the city jails on any given day because of crimes committed due to their untreated mental illness. They do not include the additional thousands living on the streets, including such luminaries as Joyce Brown ("Billie Boggs") and Larry Hogue ("the Wild Man of 96th St."). The Rikers Island city jail is now de facto the state's largest inpatient psychiatric facility. The streets and subways are now de facto the state's largest outpatient psychiatric facility.

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That is what scientology would bring even more: putting mentally ill in jail, instead of treating them.

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