Deborah Sontag at the New York Times has an article titled A Schizophrenic, a Slain Work, and Troubling Questions about the murder of Stephanie Moulton by Deshawn James Chappell.  The article raises a number of issues about this sad tale of the well-intentioned and devoted mental health worker who is killed by a man with severe mental illness.  And one of those issues is the continued reduction of long-term psychiatric beds at state hospitals:

In the cuts being debated now, Mr. Patrick proposes to eliminate roughly a quarter of the 626 long-term care beds left in the state's psychiatric hospital system. This unnerves many mental health professionals.

A true measure of a mature and principled society is how well it cares for the truly sick.  Closing long-term psychiatric beds is a tragedy because not only does it deprive necessary care for those who need it but also because it leads to more cases like this sorrowful one.