America spent decades emptying its state psychiatric hospitals. On Saturday, the World Health Organization urged governments to accelerate a global shift away from long-stay psychiatric institutions and toward community-based care.
The United States, however, has started moving in the opposite direction in some cases. The Trump administration has directed federal agencies to encourage broader use of civil commitment for some people with serious mental illness, while Texas is adding state psychiatric capacity.
Those competing moves revive a question America has wrestled with for generations: