Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy signed legislation creating a federally funded Community Mental Health Centers program. It was the last piece of major legislation signed by President Kennedy. Fuller Torrey of the Treatment Advocacy Center reminds us of the significance of this in a recent column.

Torrey has been advocating a change in the way we deal with mental illness. It is the reason we have so many problems in society. Untreated mentally ill people are the reason for clogged hospital emergency rooms and scores of homeless people on our streets and in our parks. According to the Department of Justice, approximately 15 percent of prison inmates and 20 percent of jail inmates are seriously mentally ill.

As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, the seriously mentally ill are also responsible for many of the mass killings. These killings have taken place at Virginia Tech, Tucson, Newtown, Aurora, and the Washington Navy Yard.

The goal of the legislation signed by President Kennedy was to remove the mentally ill from mental institutions and place them in state and local facilities where they would receive comprehensive mental health services. Torrey explains that: “We did an excellent job of emptying state hospitals but an atrocious job of providing treatment in the community.”

He proposes that we call this 50-year federal experiment a failure and reverse course. Let states do what is best both for the mentally ill and for the citizens adversely affected by putting the seriously mentally ill out on the streets. For 150 years, the care of mentally ill people was the responsibility of the states or local communities. It is time to rethink the way we treat the mentally ill.

America is paying a heavy price for a 50-year experiment that has put strains on our hospitals and communities. And if we are really serious about preventing future mass killings, we should follow the recommendations of Fuller Torrey.