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How Do We Deal with the Violently Mentally Ill?
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Replies to: How Do We Deal with the Violently Mentally Ill?
If we are not even supposed to mention mental illness how are the potentially violent mentally ill supposed to get help?
I don't know that the Florida shooter was ever diagnosed as mentally ill. I do think that the fallback position that people who do these acts MUST be "crazy" is too simplistic. Many of them may have anti-social personality disorders but those are not necessarily mental illness like bipolar or schizophrenia and some may just be mean or bad.
Already have this--it's called jail. It's cheaper than psychiatric care.
I think the main issue is simply cost. Both federal and state governments closed institutions because of the cost for long term care. We already know how expensive nursing home care is--now extend those costs to long term care for the mentally ill. Cheaper to lock them in jail or let them be homeless (it's estimated that a third to a half of homeless people are mentally ill).
Right now if someone is violent we lock them up in jail. But for how long? Unfortunately until an act is committed nothing much can be done by law enforcement.
And if you could easily say "so and so" needs locking up then who gets that final say?
The sad part is that there are people who would voluntarily commit themselves to get some help and even they don't have a place to go.
There is no reason besides unwillingness to spend money to make them better that mental health hospitals have been horrific.
There is actually a 911 call to police from the high school shooter asking for help about a month prior. It's very sad. They should've been able to send him somewhere.
I get that ranting and raving people are unpleasant to be around. But we don't get to lock up people because they're unpleasant to be around.
Unless your idea of mental health care is locking people up, money is not the only problem. We don't know how to treat many kinds of mental illness. We can't cure most people with mental illness. For example, we don't know how to treat people like the Sandy Hook shooter or Eric Harris, the Columbine shooter.
But still, we have to distinguish between mentally ill people who have committed crimes, and mentally ill people who have not committed crimes. If we want to lock up people who are dangerous, we need stringent criteria for dangerousness. Law enforcement in the past has not been good at distinguishing odd people, annoying people or non-white people from dangerous people.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2018/02/neighbors_thought_he_would_kill_somebody
i read the article first an hour ago and they have since edited that sentence to exclude "police told neighbors not to worry".
This.
"Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness" is a fascinating read that I highly recommend.
It really highlights the problems that both courts and families face with this issue.
From the amazon site: "Former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley had written extensively about the criminal justice system. But it was only when his own son--in the throes of a manic episode-broke into a neighbor's house that he learned what happens to mentally ill people who break a law."
Basically his son with known issues whom he took care of (which was harder when his son became of adult age and the health care system didn't allow him full access to health decisions anymore) was arrested for breaking into a neighbor's house. No harm was done but the neighbors pressed charges and his son was arrested.
A fascinating and heart breaking read from someone who already knew the system. (You have to imagine how it is for someone who doesn't already know the criminal system.)
Incarceration isn't cheap. The average nationwide is up to $32K per year and over $70K in some states.
It might be cheaper to jail people who turn out to commit crimes than to treat everyone who might commit crimes, because most people who might commit crimes don't commit crimes. But we should treat people with mental illness anyway, because public safety is not the only issue. We should treat people who need treatment to give them a better life.