The modern healthcare system often fails both patients and society when it treats mental health crises as short-term emergencies rather than as manifestations of chronic, systemic neglect. Simply stabilizing people for a week and releasing them back into the same hostile conditions guarantees both individual suffering and broader social breakdown, including increased crime. A serious, lifetime approach to mental health could form the basis for restorative justice by addressing the true roots of harm—poverty, trauma, and unmet needs.

When we discharge people who were receiving mental health care—often after a brief inpatient stay—back into the exact environment that contributed to their crisis, we are not “helping them heal”; we are setting them up to fail. Mental health struggles rarely arise in isolation. They are deeply tied to social determinants like housing instability, poverty, lack of community support, and histories of violence or neglect. By viewing treatment as a short-term intervention—stabilize symptoms, discharge, repeat—we ignore the lifetime nature of mental health needs. This is why so many cycle through hospitals, jails, or homelessness.

From a systemic perspective, it is costly and inefficient. Emergency rooms and short psychiatric holds are among the most expensive forms of care, yet they do little to prevent relapse. Meanwhile, people with untreated or under-treated mental illness are more likely to become entangled with the criminal legal system, which is neither equipped nor designed to provide meaningful treatment. This overcrowds courts and prisons and drains resources that could have been invested in prevention. From the patient’s perspective, the cycle of crisis and release is demoralizing and traumatic, reinforcing a sense of failure and hopelessness.

If we understand that many harmful acts—whether violence, theft, or substance-related offenses—stem from untreated mental health issues, trauma, or basic unmet needs, then addressing these at their root becomes an act of public safety. A system grounded in restorative justice would focus not on punishment after harm occurs, but on preventing harm by building resilient, well-supported individuals and communities. Lifetime mental healthcare, paired with secure housing, meaningful work, and supportive relationships, would dramatically reduce the conditions under which crimes are committed. In this sense, failing to provide long-term mental health support is itself a profound social negligence that leads directly to cycles of harm.

We must reject the myth that a few days in a hospital or a prescription can solve what are deeply rooted, lifelong needs. A humane, effective healthcare system would provide continuous, wraparound mental health support that acknowledges people’s struggles are embedded in their social realities. Only then can we build a model of restorative justice that treats mental illness and social failure, not just individual “bad actors.” This demands systemic investment—not in more police or prisons—but in mental health clinics, supportive housing, community centers, and long-term care. Anything less simply perpetuates the cycle of crisis, harm, and incarceration.