I worked in psychiatry in Victoria in the late 1980s and it was a revolving door for those who returned to the community without a stable and secure environment once their hospitalization ended. The victimization and criminality that is being experienced today had not materialized to today’s levels, but then, as now, it was inhuman to watch the never-ending cycle: hospitalize, stabilize and release. Governments and society must acknowledge that there are those among us who do not have the capacity to care for themselves and we as civil society must care for them. We have allowed this social experiment to continue over the last 40-plus years under the guise of self-determination and mitigation of structural costs.