After Tucson, Getting Involuntary Commitment Right
“If only” — fill in your favorite agency or person here — “had acted to deal with the shooter’s mental illness, the murders in Tucson, Arizona, would never have happened.” Many well-intentioned people have expressed similar concerns about the killer. And while it is certainly true that the involuntary commitment statutes of some states can be improved, that process is not as easy as some may think. It has taken about 40 years and a road littered with the tragic consequences of good intentions to bring us to where we are today in the identification and treatment of the mentally ill.
Many of the problems we now experience with the mentally ill and with involuntary commitment can be traced back to the early sixties, when a great many progressive attitudes, ideas, and policies began to take root. There is little doubt that the general state of mental health treatment in America at the time — particularly in state-run hospitals — was rife with neglect and abuse.
But as this sorry state became more widely known, did it lead to improvements? Not quite.
Remember that the sixties were the heyday of the counterculture, where the self-appointed intellectual elite enjoyed considerable persuasive power. Propounded by such luminaries as Harvard’s Timothy Leary, whose primary claim to academic fame was marinating his brain in LSD, slogans such as “tune in, turn on, drop out” and “don’t trust anyone over 30” became not only popular aphorisms but indicators of the paths to power — power which directly led to our current dilemma.
In the illuminating Do Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help (And The Rest of Us), Mona Charen speaks to the atmosphere of the time and some of its driving forces. Charen explains that Thomas Szasz, author of The Myth of Mental Illness, “popularized the idea that mental illness did not exist but was merely a label that a rigid and intolerant society placed upon those who were nonconformists of any stripe [...]. Mental illness was a social construct, a prejudice, not a diagnosis.” Charen notes that Erving Goffman wrote an influential book called Asylums, in which he argued that all mental treatment institutions were essentially alike, and not for the better. Goffman “insisted that that most of the symptoms of mental illness displayed by residents of mental hospitals — raving, hearing voices, paranoia — were responses to being locked up, not evidence of illness [...].” Also enormously influential was British psychoanalyst R. D. Laing. “Laing argued that modern society itself was twisted and unnatural [...]. Laing taught that society’s coercion alienated human beings from their instinctive, natural, and intuitive selves. The people society called mentally ill were merely attempting to recapture the ecstatic and intuitive parts of their souls. Who were we, he asked, to label them insane when society itself was so sick?”
If this sounds familiar, that is because it is of a piece with the contemporary progressive meme expressed by Mr. Obama — who, on the 2008 campaign trail, often called America the greatest nation in the world and then exhorted crowds to help him fundamentally change it. (As those who have been keeping track know, that intention is one of the few promises he has faithfully kept.)
One must not underestimate the influence that people like Szasz, Goffman, and Laing had on society and those treating mental illness. Their ideas — however well-intentioned — essentially boiled down to an idea that, heard today, sounds utterly idiotic: the mentally ill aren’t really sick at all, but have a supernatural sense of perception, perhaps even a more evolved consciousness than the rest of the everyday dullards (such as those clinging to God and guns, of whom Mr. Obama and his followers are so contemptuous).
All of these attitudes were brilliantly depicted and exploited in Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), which dealt with just that theme. And in case the ideas were beginning to wear off, they were reinforced by Milos Forman’s movie adaptation of the book in 1975, with Jack Nicholson brilliantly portraying Randall P. McMurphy, a petty criminal who tries to worm his way out of jail by pretending to be mentally ill. He becomes the Messiah of a mental ward, fights bravely against the oppression of the establishment, and ends up lobotomized, but his sacrifice leads another inmate, the Chief, a huge Indian, to salvation. In the final scene of the film, the Chief, with a superhuman display of strength, breaks out of the hospital, and to a thumping, Hollywood Indian-like beat, runs back to purity and goodness: the wilderness from which he came and to which, thanks to the Christ-like sacrifice of McMurphy, he can finally return.
You mean to tell me that, once again, liberal attempts to solve a social problem have backfired, as in the 1960s with mental illness? No, say it ain’t so. Funny how that always works out. That’s why I guess ObamaCare, which is the liberal’s way of trying to solve the health care problem, is going to be such a smashing success, right? Lord save us from liberals trying to help us. It always turns out to be an expensive, and sometimes deadly, disaster.
In my experience, a “mental health professional” is more likely to view a police officer as crazy and dangerous- for wanting a job that involves the possession of firearms. (I have met few such “experts” who do not have a visceral fear, and hatred, of guns.)
Similarly, in college I encountered both psych professors and students who had romanticized views of the “mentally challenged”, ranging from seeing them as simple, harmless souls who were essentially angelic (see “Forrest Gump”), to regarding them as possessing “valuable insights” that the rest of society did not. I once had a professor tell me, in all seriousness, that a schizophrenic (IIA type) was able to perceive the world “more accurately” routinely, whereas he (the professor) require chemical assistance (i.e. LSD) to achieve the same level of “expanded consciousness”.
When dealing with the psychiatric profession today, a police officer, or the next of kin of a disturbed person, may as well be dealing with an alien from Zeta Reticuli. As with an ET, the reasoning processes involved on the part of the “expert” will not be recognizable as such by the average, “unenlightened” human.
clear ether
eon
Mr. McDaniel, you are playing with fire.
“The right of the individual to avoid unnecessary, unconstitutional confinement” remains the issue, and always will. To deprive a citizen of his life, liberty, or property has always been the sole prerogative of a jury of his peers. To vest that power in State-licensed functionaries, unchecked by a gimlet-eyed civilian jury unanswerable to the State, is to undo the one and only protection Americans have against totalitarianism.
Yes, yes, we’re talking here about the “mentally ill,” who “pose a danger to themselves or to others.” By whose judgment? And who will answer for his sins should he prove to be wrong, or vindictive, or merely drunk with power?
Involuntary psychiatric commitment was how the Soviet Union used to deal with its dissidents. Keep that in mind. And remember always: Nothing is without its costs. The costs of a regime of involuntary commitment on the say-so of a sheriff or a couple of State-licensed psychiatrists might prove to be a lot higher than the well-intentioned types “horrified” by the deeds of Jared Lee Loughner would like us to imagine.
And precisely how would you have handled Jared Lee Loughner, short of shooting him before he actually pulled the trigger?
Perfection is not possible in this life. It is still preferable to presume innocence than give the state unlimited power. And juries are indeed the proper vehicle to commit a person based on their actions – along with safeguards such as the right of appeal. Meanwhile defend yourself. The world is not a completely safe place nor could we make it one if we wanted to. Dare I mention Harrison Bergeron? The police can’t be everywhere all the time and I wouldn’t want them to be in any case.
Actually, “armed citizens” is one of the best way to deal with violent mentally ill, and still have people free when not acting violently.
The problem here is eerily the same as what preceded the Virginia Tech tragedy. A mentally disturbed person is identified, ignored and then allowed to buy firearms under the laws the left has demanded.
It does no good to interdict the sales of arms and ammo to mentally disturbed people when the government refuses to identify them.
In the Virginia case, it may have been simple malfeasance or even afear of being charged with racism. In the Tuscon case, it appears there is a good possibility the mother working for the county may have been the inhibiting factor.
In both cases, had the maniacs been identified to the “system” the sale would have been blocked.
Now, could they have circumvented that? We don’t know. What we do know is that the Tuscon nut purchased things very close to the date of the crime – leading some hoplophobes to lament over the lack of waiting periods. So clearly at least some agree that an interdiction would have some effect.
Under the idiotic Brady law, of course, there were existing, harsh, federal penalties for felons attempting to purchase firearms. In fact, Bill Clinton and the simian Reno both crowed over the “hundreds of thousands” of potential purchases stopped by “Brady.”
Hmmmmm, how many of those were prosecuted and jailed?????? Not so much. Which then led to the “gun show” loophole to direct attention away from federal and local malfeasance.
1. This is not the Soviet Union. I don’t mean to say that our government is perfectly angelic, but it is not even remotely comparable.
2. Someone who smears mud on their breasts in public is quite clearly mentally ill. Your comment “by whose judgement” simply goes back to the same problem of treating the mentally ill as having a different perception of life, rather than actually being ill. Throughout my life I’ve been close friends with quite a number of mentally ill people, some of them quite seriously; every one of them thought it was absolute hell, and not an alternate view of reality.
3. When dealing with such individuals, there can be any number of unknown factors that the police have to take into consideration, such as “is that person hiding a weapon somewhere that is going to be used against bystanders?” In an extreme case, I think it would be justified to require regular drug tests to make sure that a certain patient is still taking his medication. Several years ago near where I live, a seriously ill man who had stopped taking his antipsychotic medication went into a grocery store and attacked shoppers with a samurai sword; he was eventually shot dead by the responding police officers. This could have been avoided.
Was there no one in the store carrying a handgun? Or possessed of enough wit to ram the fellow with a shopping cart or two? I don’t have the words for what your tale makes me think of the people in that neighborhood.
It would seem that no one wants to talk about the costs of involuntary psychiatric commitment, and how they compare to the costs of a regime without it. Both will be “imperfect” by any standard one cares to apply. Which will be better, and by what measures?
Remember: Any power you give the State will eventually be wielded by people who disagree with you — indeed, by people whose values are the opposite of yours. Try to envision what they would do with it before you grant it your approval.
In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Porretto, samurai swords can reach over shopping carts. Your ignorance on this subject only highlights your other opinions.
A “samurai sword” is roughly 3′. Which is, at worst, the same length as a typical shopping cart.
Question: would you rather have a shopping cart between you and the weilder, or nothing at all?
This is suburban Orange County, California. Even though there are lots of gun dealers here (three within a ten minute drive from my home), concealed carry permits are next to impossible to get, and anybody carrying openly faces serious harassment from the police. Besides, women in a grocery store with children are unlikely to attack a madman wielding a samurai sword.
I agree absolutely with this post no triumvirate or whatever appointed authority should have that power of “IC” involuntary confinement. That’s a scary proposition to make it easy to confine someone, just imagine the abuse field day the left would have with this easement!!!
“By Whose Judgment?” The answer, dear Francis, is by a trained mental health professional. That may be a Masters or Doctoral degree level counselor or psychologist whose job it is to interview persons brought to the mental health center and then to diagnose and recommend or not recommend commitment to a Community Mental Health Center (CMHC) or state hospital for involuntary treatment, to be determined by a judge at a hearing. I’ve interviewed several hundreds of such persons, finding most of them not diagnosable, but also finding many who were diagnosable but not at risk to harm themselves or others, and finding many others who were diagnosable and at such risk. Those, if a County Judge so determined, went to a hospital. In only the clearest of cases was state hospital treatment recommended, and only in the clearest of cases did a judge recommend commitment. (It was fruitless to recommend CMHC treatment and I soon quit doing it.) In the case of Loughner, if he had come before me, I would have recommended commitment. His illness is clear, although whether treatment would help is unclear. However, the sheriff of Pima County did not do the job he ought to have done and brought Loughner to the mental health authority of Pima County.
My own experience was unique because I worked in a state hospital before the Community Mental Health Centers Act and observed a few (certainly not many) abuses. In those days a family member could go to a judge and get someone committed with no examination at all until he or she arrived at the state hospital, and the people at the hospital took their own good time “examining” the new patient. I remember one kid of twenty who was so railroaded by his attorney father. It took the hospital two or three months to examine him, which meant breaking his spirit, but it eventually did break his spirit and when he was discharged I drove him home. I asked him what he was going to do in life now, and he said, go to college, go to law school, and keep what happened to me from happening to anyone else.
The laws of all states are generally the same, and are not bad laws. If they are observed, as they were not in Arizona, both the people and the mentally ill are protected.
Liberals believe that society can be structured so as to solve every problem and correct every flaw. It’s always about more money and more laws. Geraldo Rivera lamented the AZ shooting was a failure of the mental health system failing to recognize that no system can stop every tragedy and prevent every crime. In the case of IC, we often ignore the fact that agencies happily assign mental illness to troubled people or offenders of the law because such individuals provide such a rich funding source. Even hardened criminals with severe personality disorders will be diagnosed with Axis 1 mental illnesses (considered dually diagnosed) just to have a way to keep them in the funding loop. On one hand the liberals would have mildly disturbed people being committed and on the other, hardened criminals getting access to benefits and services. Always remember the unintended consequences of well meaning laws.
Likewise, those who suffer from mental illness (not all of them severe enough to grab headlines) who deserve the same civil rights afforded to all citizens, are much less likely to fight for them when abused, due to the stigma and legal costs involved, further guaranteeing the flow of such funds.
As a wise man once quipped, “How long is one mentally ill? Twenty eight days. That is, until the insurance runs out…”
(Please note that this comment is not meant as a singular reply to any other herein; but I cannot find such category…)
Having been physically and verbally assaulted by two former “neighbors” [incidents totally unrelated], as well as witnessing the aftermath of a murder-suicide by a psychotic individual in Eastchester, New York–over a decade ago: my conclusion is basically in agreemwnt with this writer.
Legislation must be prudently prepared; however, a 72 hour involuntary commitment should be granted via court order–EVEN WHEN THE COMPLAINT IS REGISTERED BY AN INDIVIDUAL WHO CLAIMS TO BE VICTIMIZED BY ANOTHER! No one
party or legal entity need by “blamed”, should an error in judgment be rendered…To avoid travesty; the original complainant, police, psychological and/or medical professional, and the court–should cooperate in the decision process…Furthermore, the institution that evaluates the temporarily incarcerated individual–should be equipped with the best evaluation systems in our modern world.
Following the 72 hour evaluation, rendered by an impartial body of professionals–the decision would be made to release the incarcerated individual, or provide further involuntary commitment. (This writer has been striving for legal attention to this vital matter, since the murder-suicide in Eastchester, New York–during Mayor Giuliani’s governance of New York City…Mayor Giuliani immediately sent the New York City Police to our little suburban neighborhood–which was an exceptional deed.)
When you empower Officials with the ability to lock up folks who “act crazy” you’ve created the ability to lock anyone up for anything that’s considered crazy by anyone.
Neighbors find a fellow talking to himself or a pet and away they go to the mental health ward. Fail to cut your lawn or your hair and away you go. Make a habit of rooting for the visitors instead of the home team and zoom it’s off to a Psychiatrist.
Perhaps you cannot hear well and respond to queries from the sane with words that don’t fit the conversation and here comes the Cops.
it’s a slippery slope to vigilante justice.
“When you empower Officials with the ability to lock up folks who “act crazy” you’ve created the ability to lock anyone up for anything that’s considered crazy by anyone.”
Not true. Professional guides such as DSM-IV define what is “crazy”. The normal 72 hour mandated limit works against incorrect application of professional guidance.
“Professional guides such as DSM-IV define what is ‘crazy’”.
“Not true”.
I am certified by the State. You’re in denial. You will locked up and drugged.
And DSM V will be written by the left wing of the psychologists and psychiatrists activist groups.
Not thinking that Social Security with its 1% lifetime average return (not 1% a year, 1% total) is worthwhile will be there.
Not thinking that psychologists hired by the government will be there.
All under some jargon as “irrational paranoic process”.
Unless a political decision has been made to send YOU to the gulag.
In little Kalamazoo, MI a few years back a student riding the train home got off here at the station to go to the bathroom. A local mentally ill fellow was also in the bathroom and beat him to death as 30 people in the lobby listened to the student scream for help. No one did anything that I know of.
A year or so ago a mentally ill fellow beat, nearly to death with a lead pipe, an elderly couple in downtown Kazoo who were leaving a movie theater.
The mental hospital on the hill that once housed hundreds of souls is mostly empty except for a few of the truly insane. I am sure in its’ day it was a horrible place to be. I know as I made visits as part of a group to interact with the ‘inmates’.
Yes the ‘homeless’ of the Reagan era that the left raged about were largely the result of emptying the asylums. No, I understand,,,,the asylums were hell, I know, I get it. The ‘homeless’ are everywhere in downtown Kazoo. Most mean no harm.
I am a surety agent (bail bondsman)/bounty hunter. I run into mentally disturbed people in jail, ALL THE TIME, and jail is not a pretty place for these folks.
Families often ask me where can we take him/her if we bond him/her out. I reply. No where that I know of. Every place that I know of requires an appointment. I believe that the mentally ill are NOT treated very well in the jails and in prison. But HEY, that’s where we have decided to drop them off.
As my wife (32 years as a Special Ed administrator) often says, “”Good law gone bad” and NO we won’t live in downtown Kazoo, thank you.
If patients were to be confined again, the streets of the District of Columbia would be virtually free of street people. I think all the regulations regarding the definition and identification of those who are mentally ill should be revised. When I was teaching, the requirement that parents must agree to psychological evaluation could endanger the lives of classmates. Even when their child leaped around on top of desks, brandishing scissors in an unusual “test the substitute” activity, one set of parents refused. Several years later I learned that the child was in a class for the mentally disturbed. This sort of screening or lack thereof continues. Much emphasis is placed on the sanctity of patient or personal rights and little on public safety.
In the heyday of the Soviet Union, as much as ten percent of its population at any one time was “in mental institutions”, which were a combination of slave labor sources and political punishment machines. After a certain length of time had passed, it was not uncommon for the government to visit the spouse and family and tell them to move along, he’ll never be the same, he doesn’t want to see you anymore, find a nice man, we’ll make the divorce easy, etc. Then they would go to the prisoner and tell him that his wife had remarried and he would not be having any visitors. The mental cruelty was absolutely SATANIC, and it was normal government policy for those people.
Where the potential for abuse exists by tyrannical types, all caution should be used. I cannot imagine living in a country where a quick signature by a nameless bureaucrat is all it takes to be put in a mental institution.
Child protective services works so well, let’s just expand the ability of the government to deprive you of liberty without due process. What could possibly go wrong?
A good law must have a deep consideration of the unintended consequences, which is always difficult and seldom occurs. But a law in which a person can be put away for observation for acting legally but not meeting someone else’s concept of normal is extremely dangerous to everyone’s freedom. The fact that we can make a law to handle past events such as Virginia Tech or Tucson does not mean that we know enough to incarcerate people before they commit a crime.
That is what gun control is supposedly all about, taking all guns away from everyone except a few good guys in the government who will protect us from the bad guys. Most of us know the fallacies in that, one of which is there can not be enough government good guys right there when you need them, and with the same incentive as you have to save yourself. You are the only one who can save you and yours. As FDR sort of said, the only thing we have to protect is protection itself.
But the real problem is that we turn these people who have not broken a law yet, over to a group of psychiatrists to decide on incarceration, and if so their treatment, and determination of their success at being reeducated. The psychiatrists did not do justice for someone who is guilty of breaking the law, such as Hinkley, and it will likely be worse for those who did not yet break the law.
There are a number of medical doctors in Congress, and they are bringing in refreshing new views. How many psychiatrists are there in Congress, and how many would the public like to see there? I certainly don’t have a lot of faith in turning over all our freedoms to the doctors who have invented so many metal illnesses for them to treat and us pay for.
No the only answer is to determine new laws of what you can do, or say or type so anyone who may be a problem can be put away because they did break the law. Of course it will be hard to tell which institution is worse, the one for those put away or the one for the rest of us who sold our freedom for a false sense of protection.
Rightgunner, very often a law is broken i.e. walking around exposed smearing mud on yourself, taking pot shots on a public street etc.
Some of the things Loughner was doing in the months leading up to the shooting could be considered making terroristic threats or at least disorderly conduct.
I’ll grant you that talking to a friendly invisible rabbit shouldn’t be grounds for IC.
Believe me, none ya’ll would want m blogging replies from the nut-house. I have my own little sanctified world I live in and I’d kindly thank ya to leave me the frick alone unless I be a dailin’ 911 or yellin’ fer my neighbors to put out a fire.
Seriously, people. Nuts is nuts and we all visit there occasionally whether by imbibing in too much of the Jesus-Juice or smokin’ too much of the “sticky bud” or taking to many prescription pain-killers or being heart-broken by someone who kicked you to the curb.
Not to mention…
I DON’T trust Psychiatrists. PERIOD.
I don’t know about Arizona, but in liberal California it’s rather easy to get an involuntary commitment under the 5150 W&I code: any peace officer, as defined by the California Penal Code, can do a 72 hour psych commitment for anyone who is a danger to self or others, in the eyes for of the peace officer as a reasonable person. And most reasonable persons as peace officers learn the principle of CYA: cover your ass. When in doubt, 5150 the person and let the “professionals” and the courts sort out the psychiatric subtleties. I’m surprised that with all the prior police contacts, five six or so with the shooter regarding his strange behavior, that something similar to a 5150 didn’t occur–which may explain the sheriff’s political show boating to deflect liability over the shooting. The only issue is whether such a psychiatric incident as a 5150 commitment would preclude future legal gun ownership; and given the black market in weapons, whether, that would have made any difference with someone, such as the Arizona shooter, who is bound and determined to go for the gusto.
Good article. It seems one obvious thing to push for is to make it so that the mentally unstable are incarcerated until they are no long a threat to themselves and others.
One the mental facility releases someone back to the street because “she’s crazy” part of the solution really does become obvious.
I’m in agreement with the other people who are mentioning that forced mental warding of people is a bad idea to give in to the hands of the establishment, Loughner might not have even done the shooting (for how controlled the media is and how much political gold his actions were for tightening controls. Too many coincidences were there, a girl born on 9/11 that socially involved at 9, her parents saying (paraphrased) “this isn’t about gun control {which would be tackled by many others} this is about people needing mental medical help”. Have you looked at what is considered a mental disorder now requiring medication? Wanting to eat healthily now is a disorder, as in NOT OBEYING AUTHORITIES. Loughner was set up is my hunch, a guy on the street with a gun didn’t shoot him even though he was there AND ARMED. Now why wouldn’t you shoot? Why kill a judge who rules in favor of illegal immigrants as well as send a senator in for brain surgery? With how skilled a shot he was and the speed he took them down with a RECENTLY purchased weapon, someone trained him IF he really is the killer, and not some shumck they chose off the street. His youtube page was faked, the Senator’s was altered as well, and no one smart enough to not talk to the cops (pleading the 5th), would leave evidence behind in easily accessible places. Anyone see Wag the Dog? They have ways of getting people’s compliance with their official story, many would take the ‘being a hero’ to being a dead witness of a political assassination is my hunch. Total totalitarian set up. My predictions the first time I heard it were all true (Guns and security forces for politicians being made a ‘necessity’, trying to tighten gun regulations, calling for forced internment camps for Mexican illegal immigrants {why they needed the judge dead} to provided free/cheap labor for the various wars, and pushing mandatory psyche tests/getting the clearance to shove dissidents into internment camps- because psychiatrists think they are ‘unwell’. Honestly, if people have guns or other weapons, they could have stopped this kid after he first started shooting, pulled their guns when he pulled his, which is better than having the state have the power to throw people in internment camps where no one will believe a word they say for having been in a psych-ward for something like oppositional defiant disorder, which seriously is what every activist that doesn’t obey authority could be labeled with.
The problem with letting licensed professionals take away liberty instead of jurys is that they are liability conscious. They worry about their liability if they release the subject so consequently they tend to err on the side of locking them up. They aren’t worried about false imprisonment liability because in my state Maryland, as in most states, they have a statutory presumption of reasonableness. The wrongly committed must first prove “unreasonableness” before ther suit can proceed. This is a tall order, and only mental health professionals enjoy this protection from liability.
There have been many positive changes in America because of the 60′s. We are now ‘living’ in all the ‘Harm’ the 60′s created as well.
Now, with ‘Political Correctness’ (aka hiding our heads in the sand) we are further harming ourselves. Time to start calling it as we see it. The Truth hurts sometimes but it will also set you free…
What everyone fails to address, is the consequence of an involuntary hold.
Unlike a criminal offence, where you have a right to defence and representation, and cannot be convicted without due process, a right to bail, et al, an involuntary hold is essentially conviction at the time of implimentation; and it stays on your records for the rest of your life–and very few employers will hire with that on your record, even if upon examination you are found to be sane. So its possible to have a unqualified social worker write 2 sentences and have someone commited, who is later released after a through evaluation by a compentent authority–but the ‘conviction’ stays on your record forever–there is no mechinism for review or removal.
The dr gives you a drug with a bad interaction, that lands on a hold? You are defined as crazy for the rest of your life–