You think care of the mentally ill is mollycoddling! Are you totally cut off from the real world? Right now over half of all who are imprisoned in the US for violence are mentally ill. You can't possibly expect poor families to cope with the 24/7 care of violent ill people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/opinion/15harcourt.html Please stop trying to avoid the reality that there are people who are so dangerous they need to be locked up. And offer a semi-intelligent way for their 24/7 care to be paid for.
I was speaking about the mollycoddling of you and your ideology specifically. Assisting the inferm is not mollycoddling. I do believe that it is possible to take care of the ill without plundering your neighbor to do it. You have no faith in humanity at all it seems.
You misread the article. It said that many of the inmates were reporting mental illness problems. That does not necessarily imply that was the reason they were imprisoned in the first place. Unless what you're going to say next is, they are mentally ill because they commit violent crime. I sure hope not.
There are people who need to be incarcerated and cared for 24/7 because they are a danger to themselves and to society. This is expensive. You have said that you personally would not contribute to this cost. If we do not have taxation, how will their care be paid for?