› what is wrong with people ?
You can come at this from many angles. Only point I'm going to make is when the psychiatric system was dismantled and went from a state run disaster to a community (as in private for-profit) based sorta-run complete disaster. Instead of people rotting away in the padded rooms of an institution, we leave them to roam the streets.
I can't tell you which is better, but when you have the tragedies that occur on an almost daily basis, it makes you wonder.