He may not be sufficiently mentally unwell in the right way to be sent to a mental institution.
Chris is not I’ll enough to go to a mental institution, he is not insane, hence he shouldn’t and couldn’t be admitted to a mental institution.
I'm sorry; I didn't make myself clear. By "mental institution," I didn't mean what we think of as an insane asylum. I agree that he's nowhere near "sick" enough for that. What I had in mind was something more like a nursing home, where the elderly go, or such a "home" which caters to people who, for some reason (mental, physical, or emotion) simply can't function on their own in society, and have no family to take care of them. There are "homes" for the retarded, and the residents range from mild retardation to people who are brain dead. (In many of these homes, the milder cases, or high-functioning Down's Syndrome people, actually hold low-paying, low-skilled jobs on the outside. Similar "homes" exist for people with horrible physical handicaps, like "basket cases" (quadruple amputees.) Every big town/small city has these "residential treatment centers;" Charlottesville has a shitload of them.
But the problem is that these "residential treatment centers" are Hellishly expensive, like $10K a month expensive, and if a family can't pay, then they don't get a bed/room. Obviously Chris has no family, and I don't think that there's an insurance policy in the world that would pay for lifetime care at those prices.
This all begs the question, "
Could Chris survive on his own, working a job and paying his bills?" Of course he could, if he'd cut the bullshit and clean himself up. He'd need some kind soul to help him get started, but such people exist: maybe Rocky or one of the other people at that church, if Chris went back to them and apologized for past behavior.
Unless that happens, which it won't, I've changed my prediction, since you've helped me reconsider the institutional arrangements in society. Chris isn't gonna live under a bridge like a troll, and he can't afford "perpetual care." Now that he's learning that jail isn't the worst place on earth, I can
easily see him deliberately committing a few felonies (breaking into a post office and vandalizing it would get him a nice federal sentence), so that he can go back to jail. I guess, unless some deranged but wealthy "sugar daddy" comes along, prison is where he'll live out his life and die..
But he won't kill himself. He's too much of an egomaniac.