Neither should they be kept incarcerated in hospitals because their behavior is inconvenient.

Incarceration without criminal trial and a guilty verdict has the same effect, no matter where it takes place: it deprives people of their civil rights. People who are mentally ill can exercise free choice and commit themselves to hospitals, but who knows what will happen in there, and when they will ever be released? Would you seek to be committed to an institution unless you were desperate?

We have too little in the way of non-institutional treatment for the mentally ill.

We have a culture that ridicules the mentally ill, or views them as dangerous. Our society will not offer employment to people with mental illnesses that are being effectively treated, thus creating an entire subculture of denial. Don't even get me started on health insurance.

I deal with the mentally ill, because I work in a public institution. We see everybody. My late mother-in-law was also certified by mental health professionals in 3 states. Oh, and I was clinically depressed for approximately a year and a half over a decade ago. So I have professional, family and personal experience on this issue.

The year my mother-in-law lived in 14 places inside of 12 months, we got to know the infrastructure of those three states' mental health systems very well. I lost track of how much time I spent on the phone. What we heard continually: "We'd like to do more, but the case workers all have over 30 cases to keep track of as it is." And: "Most of the families of the people we see would have given up by now." And indeed, why wouldn't they? How embarassing, to have a member of the family who's a crazy nutzo whackjob, pejorative terms which are used here quite often to describe people one doesn't like. Put them away, where they can be with their own kind! Quit giving the family a bad name!

You appear to be in favor of locking people up. I agree, the world would be a prettier place if we didn't have to look at things that disturb us. The mentally ill can't possibly need, want or be entitled to human rights like the rest of us. Or like the rest of you. I am tainted.

Recently, we had a workshop, conducted by a mental health agency, about dealing with the mentally ill in a community setting. We were told that one of the presenters was mentally ill, and indeed one of the women exhibited low-level compulsive behaviors. Yet she was charming, informative and helpful. At the end of the presentation, she revealed what her diagnosis was: excellent acting. The real mentally ill person (just like on "To Tell the Truth") stood up. She was the director of the organization. She looked and acted just like a real human, and a very successful one at that. She was lucky, she said: she got treatment and support.

She also pointed out that the dangerous mentally ill are far more likely to be charming and well-groomed sociopaths who remain undetected and untreated because our society has a blind spot against mental illness that is borne of bigotry against the mentally ill. We are not that far removed from the time when mental illness was considered a punishment from God or possession by the Devil.

So perhaps just the ugly smelly pests should be locked up. Once they are locked away, out of the sight of "sane" people, they will be subject to the same kinds of brutal abuse that gave rise to deinstitutionalization in the first place, unless you advocate more and better mental health treatments. But if we had that now, we wouldn't be dealing with this crisis in the first place.

What are the chances that someone in your extended family is mentally ill? Pretty good. What are the chances that they will never ever admit it to you but would rather suffer in silence than risk being "treated" without their consent? Excellent.