The Institutional Failure of Jordan Neely
Whatever happened on that subway, it never needed to reach that point.
If you haven’t read the story of Jordan Neely, it’s a tragic tale of a homeless man acting erratically, yelling, and generally making people on a New York City subway feel very uncomfortable. I assume with the intention of protecting other passengers, a former marine put Jordan in a chokehold and Jordan died.
Thankfully, New York City and State officials are looking at this as a homicide. It will be complicated because Jordan was in a manic state and there are many people in the community who feel as though homeless, mentally unstable people are a danger to be protected from as opposed to vulnerable to violence themselves.
Regardless of what happened on the subway that day, I want to take a moment to consider the institutional failures. In the article I link to above, let’s consider a few facts about Jordan:
According to police sources, Neely had a documented mental health history. He had been arrested more than 40 times prior for assault, disorderly conduct and fare evasion.
In other stories we learn that his mother was brutally murdered and that trauma set Jordan on a path of mental disturbance, which turned into homelessness and that he’s been unhoused for years.
This creates an obvious question. What kind of system arrests an obviously mentally disturbed man 40 times and just spits him back out to live on the streets with no mental health treatment at all?
The same system that treats the penal system as a de facto mental health holding pen. That only thinks of unhoused human beings as a problem to get rid of, and tells people that mental health struggles and violent behavior are one and the same.
Homeless, mentally unstable people are at risk because society doesn’t care enough about them to do anything different. Jordan Neely isn’t the victim of crime, first his mother’s murder and now his own death, he’s someone to be feared. Or, one less person to be feared now, I guess.
His death may be officially blamed on that person on the subway, but it’s the lack of mental health resources that killed him. He never had a chance.