Mark Heyrman spent more than four decades teaching about the mental health system as a University of Chicago Law School professor. He says the biggest problem he sees is this: No single entity in Illinois coordinates care. [ Chicago Sun-Times]

The Chicago Sun-Times, as part of an investigation into the circumstances behind random attacks downtown involving suspects with histories of severe mental illness, asked Heyrman why these people seem to have fallen through Illinois’ safety net of treatment.

“If you failed in the previous discharge plan, we should say, ‘Why did you fail?’ And usually it’s not ‘you failed,’ but ‘we failed you, we didn’t give you enough services,’ ” says Heyrman, a public policy committee member with the organization Mental Health America who’s retired from the U. of C.

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