Historically, the argument to provide better treatment for individuals with serious mental illness has been made in terms of reducing the 5,000 suicides, 1000 homicides, 175,000 homeless, 218,000 incarcerations and $100 billion spent on mental illness and mental health.
But the shooting of eleven individuals and death of three uniformed members of the National Guard at a Carson City IHOP by Edwardo Sencion shows it may be time to look at the national security implications of letting people with serious mental illness go untreated.
According to Lake Tahoe News, "Sencion has had mental issues since at least April 2000. That is when South Lake Tahoe police officers assisted with getting him committed to receive psychiatric care."
If proven true, the shooting of uniformed members of the National Guard, is just the most recent example of untreated serious mental illness driving otherwise nondescript individuals to attack institutions that provide for our national security:
- President Ronald Reagan was shot by mentally John Hinckley in an attempt to get a date with Jodie Foster
- President James Garfield was killed by mentally ill Charles Guiteau
- President Andrew Jackson was shot by mentally ill Richard Lawson
- President Theodore Roosevelt was shot by a mentally ill man who said a ghost told him to shoot.
- Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot by Jared Loughner who has been ordered to receive treatment for mental illness
- Before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, he escaped an planned assassination by mentally ill Richard Pavlick
- Russel Weston shot two security officers at the US Capital Building and was found incompetent to stand trial
- John Patrick Bedell who shot up the Pentagon had a history of mental illness that led his parents to warn authorities about him.
- Americans learned to fear the US Postal Service after mentally ill Unabomber Ted Kacynski used it to carry letter bombs.
- Preventing mentally ill individuals from scaling White House fences has become a routine part of Secret Service training.
- On the local level, police are routinely killed by people with mental illness or feel compelled to shoot first.
Clearly, untreated serious mental illness is having a profound effect on our national security.
Improving treatment for the most seriously ill is not only the right thing to do for them, it would help all of us. More money is not needed. Polices to spend it smarter are.
- The money the federal government and state governments provide for mental 'health' is inversely prioritized: it goes to the least ill first, and the most severely ill last. That has to change.
- Government agencies, like the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency (SAMHSA) waste money. The agency should be eliminated and the funds reallocated.
- Programs at the local level that send the seriously ill to the back of the line rather than the front should be replace with programs willing to prioritize the most seriously ill.
- The Medicaid Policy ("IMD Exclusion") that gives states a financial incentive to discharge the most seriously ill sicker and quicker should be eliminated.
- State involuntary treatment laws that require individuals to be 'danger to self or others' before they can receive care should be replace with laws that prevent violence, rather than require it.
- State Assisted Outpatient Treatment laws that allow judges to require potentially violent mentally ill individuals to stay in treatment as a condition for living in the community should be vigorously enforced.
Taking better care of those who can't help themselves is what a kind, compassionate and humane civilization should be doing. Failing to do so is bringing both our morality and our safety into question.
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This thesis published by the Naval Postgraduate school declares, "(L)local law enforcement is dealing with the unintended consequences of a policy change that in effect removed the daily care of our nation’s severely mentally ill population from the medical community and placed it with the criminal justice system. This policy change has caused a spike in the frequency of arrests of severely mentally ill persons, prison and jail population and the homeless population. A nationwide survey of 2,406 senior law enforcement officials conducted within this paper indicates that the deinstitutionalization of the severely mentally ill population has become a major consumer of law enforcement resources nationwide. This paper argues that highly cost-effective policy recommendations exist that would assist in correcting the current situation, which is needlessly draining law enforcement resources nationwide, thereby allowing sorely needed resources to be directed toward this nation’s homeland security concerns. Read it at http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/national-studies/homelandsecuritymentalillness.pdf
A few facts will hopefully help you understand better.
1. AOT is only used after other treatments have failed. That is in the legislation. An individual must have a prior history of multiple hospitalizations, incarcerations, dangerous behavior, or they are ineligible. So it's not accurate to say that the first thing we propose is force. By definition, it is one of the last.
2. Assisted Outpatient Service does not necessarily require individuals to take medications at all. The only 'required' service is case management. Conflating the two doesn't help.
3. The research on violence is clear: Mental illness is not associated with violence and serious mental illness is not associated with violence, BUT serious mental illness that is left untreated in people who have a history of violence when untreated is associated with an increase in violence. You can find a fact sheet on violence here: http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/consequences/mental-illness-violence-stats.html and one on the four different calculations suggesting 1000 homicides are due to untreated mental illness here: http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/consequences/1000-homicides.html
Finally, you link to a site that claims there is 'stigma' (a mark of shame or disgrace) to mental illness. I don't agree with that. There is discrimination, but no stigma. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dj-jaffe/theres-no-stigma-to-havin_b_850024.html
Thanks again. Best.
NIMH says the mentally ill are not generally prone to violence, more likely to be victims than perps.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2011/understanding-severe-mental-illness.shtml
The association of mental illness and violence holds for conditions where one has a psychotic break. The vast majority of conditions/patients do not qualify.
Suicide's so rare that it's hard to get good data on it (to tell if some treatment prevents it).
"State involuntary treatment laws that require individuals to be 'danger to self or others' before they can receive care should be replace with laws that prevent violence, rather than require it."
I categorically reject that. What is mental health? What's the ability of psych. to predict violence? Contentious matters! Psychology includes all human thought/behavior, but the establishment has painted itself into a corner saying clin. psych. is a legit part of scientific medicine. To much power already.
Adrian Schoolcraft, former cop, is sane. He audio taped NYC duty sargents giving illegal orders. Told internal affairs, they take him to the psych ward. 3 days go by, staff see no signs of mental illness. Cops come back to the ward, insist Adrian is nuts, he is held another 3 days b/c staff believe police before the teachings of their own discipline.
Sounds like you want rights to be taken away w/o a conviction for a crime, w/o determination that one poses a danger or that one is not mentally capable to make their own decisions about medical care. Or you want a relaxed standard for the last one?
That's what AOT is - removal of the right to determine one's own medical care - under threat of inpatient commitment
The conflicting needs of society must be balanced. Taking away these freedoms must be done carefully and w/limits. State power is prone to abuse, history shows. Often abuse isn't the intent, being sure one is doing the right thing is powerful motivation. Police often won't tell a perp they've a right to an attorney, to remain silent, then they coerce a confession. "Evil" cops, or did they believe they had the right guy? The ends justify the means, but they don't.
Involuntary care is similar, the authorities believe they are helping someone, but they impose drug treatments that destroy the nervous system, make the healthy into diabetics. The state must be restrained b/c its history is always to overstep its bounds.
It must be very hard to be in your individual position, no comfort or help to be told that for the greater good a higher bar must be met before the state can act.