Blue states would rather mentally ill criminals be able to terrorize law-abiding citizens than actually crack down on this insanity.
With a news cycle that often includes school shootings, sexual deviance, or other violent and disturbing events, the latest out of Portland feels like the norm.
On Tuesday, KATU reported that 39-year-old Joel Thomas Faith was arrested after being charged with third-degree sexual abuse and harassment, and is currently being held without bail.
Court documents say Faith approached a woman outside a market as she was leaving her vehicle, groped her buttocks, and ran away.
Faith did not exactly look unassuming, as he was wearing a dress and his beard was bloody. About 30 minutes later, police found him near a Kentucky Fried Chicken.
The episode gets worse when learning that Faith had a warrant for his arrest related to a 2023 charge of violating a stalking protective order. The warrant’s issuance came in July 2025.
In May 2023, police were alerted to Faith yelling at people on the street, telling one woman getting her mail, “Die, die, die.”
Making threats, stalking, and allegedly sexually assaulting people should be enough to commit a man in a dress, but this is Oregon.
There was a time when this behavior landed you in an asylum, but now it makes you the object of adoration as “stunning and brave.” The police can make arrests, but Faith and others aren’t being given serious treatment or lengthy prison sentences. Instead, they’re back on the street in no time.
The asylum must make a return.
The 1960s saw a shift in mental health praxis away from inpatient care in favor of psychiatric medication in hopes of helping patients foster productive lives.
There’s been an overestimation of the successes of outpatient care.
We haven’t seen a healthier and more productive society, but one where the mentally stable must navigation life among the ill.
In the meantime, criminal law in blue states must shift from compassion to justice.
Giving multiple second chances only puts lives at risk — the most infamous recent example being 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska getting stabbed to death by 34-year-old DeCarlos Brown Jr. on public transport in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Brown had a history of charges, was known to have schizophrenia, and was part of former North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s early release program for inmates during COVID, as Fox News reported.
Serious illnesses require hospitalization. Serious mental illnesses require the same treatment. We put ourselves in danger when we shrug off these practices in favor of so-called compassion.
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