You are entitled to your opinions. But I just feel that you don't truly understand the entire "process" of what is going on in this case.
I am befuddled why anyone would think that putting a confessed multiple child killer into a mental health system that is overpopulated and underfunded is more appropriate than putting them into a criminal justice system that can provide the same, if not better, so-called treatment - for her lifetime.
There are prisons in Texas that are geared specifically toward the mentally ill. One of them is the prison that Ms. Yates was incarcerated in prior to winning her appeal for a second trial and being relocated to the state hospital in the same town.
While I agree that Mr. Yates was insensitive to the entire situation prior to the murders of his five children (and should've bore some responsibility in the legal process), I do not agree about placing blame so much on the mental health providers that treated her. There is a strict guideline in Texas for whether a person is "commitable" - and that is whether they are a danger to themselves or others. If they are deemed not a danger after evaluation in a mental health facility then, by law, they have to be released to a less-restrictive environment. My guess is that Ms. Yates or Mr. Yates (or a combination of the two) were able to convince the treatment teams that she was able to live at home, probably with an accompanying medication regimen. Whether that regimen was complied with or not is suspect to me, as many mental patients and/or their families believe the medication is not required and discontinue it when in an unsupervised setting.
My problem with Mr. Yates specifically is related to the fact that he obviously knew/felt that she needed some supervision while he was not at home, based on the arrangement to have the mother come over during the daytime. If, based on that knowledge, he failed to continue to seek inpatient treatment with accurate information (or compliance with prescribed medication) or seek full-time live-in assistance, then I believe that makes him culpable.
I also have a problem with the fact that the jury in the second trial was not allowed to know that Ms. Yates could possibly be allowed to be discharged back into the general population if their verdict was Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity. I think that juries have the right to full knowledge of the consequences of their verdicts. I don't think that anyone believes that Ms. Yates should ever be allowed to walk free on the streets ever again - mentally ill or malingering (which is prevalent in forensic cases such as this). A verdict of guilty (due to the lack of Texas law not having a "Guilty but Insane" verdict) would've sent her back to a lifetime of confinement and treatment in the prison hospital that I mentioned earlier. And, personally, I believe that would've been the proper option in this case.
While she is a patient in the Texas mental health system, her "treatment" will consist of medication (if deemed appropriate by her treatment team) and rehabilitation activities that include arts and crafts and other low-functioning-level entertainment. Under Texas law mental patients are required to be offered the opportunity to be involved in at least twenty hours of such activity. After hours there are coed dances. etc. She also has the opportunity to work in a client worker position, which is usually washing dishes, for minimum wage. But, due to underfunding and overpopulation, one on one counseling or psychotherapy that you may have seen depicted in movies or on television is basically non-existent. In other words, unless you've worked in the mental health system in Texas you have a misconception about what psychiatric treatment entails.
The current plans are to send Ms. Yates to a "maximum security" hospital for evaluation. When she is deemed "not manifestly dangerous" she will be referred to a Dangerous Review Board. If she passes the review board & is found not dangerous by them, she will be sent back to the minimum security hospital she was at prior to her second trial. And from there she may be released back into the community to live life as an person innocent of killing three of her five children.
< The minimum security hospital has no fences or walls, although the wards are locked. However, unauthorized departures while patients are off the ward (or escapes, as you might call them) are commonplace.>
It is my hope that when that day comes that she will be tried and convicted of murdering her other two children and placed where she truly belongs - in a state prison hospital where she will be confined for life. Because it is there that she will be locked safely away forever and has the real opportunity to receive more individualized counseling and treatment in a system that has superb funding. Plus she will then have to face what she did, which was to methodically and systematically drown her five babies - one that she had to chase down and struggle with in order to complete the process. An act that she deliberately timed to happen during the interval that she was alone in the house with the children.
As an aside, I might add that some of the mental health system's more notorious patients are people that previously worked in either the health care profession or justice system. People that, literally, get away with murder and other heinous crimes. Ms. Yates was a nurse.
Of course if you think it is appropriate that Ms. Yates be released back into the general population and free to reproduce more children - then nevermind.
And, if you haven't guessed, I work for the mental health system in Texas.
