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Wiz Imp

(10,425 posts)
Mon Sep 1, 2025, 07:11 PM Sep 2025

Well, Reagan (as Governor) was largely responsible for the deinstitutionalization movement in California

https://capitolweekly.net/the-republican-who-emptied-the-asylums/

In the public’s collective imagination, Ronald Reagan is most often credited or blamed for emptying state mental hospitals, and subsequently failing to provide adequate care for former patients or people who in years past would have been patients. In reality, Gov. Reagan took his cue from Lanterman.

That there are tens of thousands of Californians with mental illness locked in prisons or living on the streets today cannot be blamed solely on decisions made in the 1960s.

There have been seven gubernatorial administrations since Reagan left office in 1975. Since Lanterman retired in 1978, hundreds of legislators have come and gone. But aftershocks continue from the seismic public policy shift that took place in California in 1967.
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