On Violence and Mental Illness

In response to the recent Lafayette shooting, I would like to post this article:

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/health/2015/07/21/Becoming-aware-of-mental-illness-Law-requires-training-for-police-judges/stories/201507210005

There has been evidence the shooter was dealing with bipolar disorder and mental illness. This is a story we hear all too often. It seems every violent or strange crime has been committed by a mentally ill person. Not surprising -- one could argue that no sane person would do something so horrible and senseless. As someone who's experienced bipolar disorder firsthand, let me tell you my thoughts on this.

First, it's important to keep in mind that not all mentally ill people are like this. I've never considered being violent with someone in my entire life. The idea is horrible to me, and it should be. Considering the number of people who have battled mental illness -- depression, for example -- the number who end up doing things like this is actually fairly small.

But mentally ill people do often turn to crimes, even if they are just minor or non-violent crimes. The most typical examples are of people who are acting inappropriate or belligerent (or even delusional) in public, even to police officers, and people who have problems with drug and alcohol addiction. What you get with these people are those who have no mental health care and no support system. Our mental health system is broken. We closed down all the asylums, which is good because they were abusive, but then we never built anything to replace them. So many mentally ill people end up homeless or in jail.

For more on mental illness in the homeless, read this article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/miami-group-is-helping-homeless-people-access-mental-health-treatment_55ad32afe4b065dfe89ee144

I guess what I'm saying is, the problem is two-fold. First, this small minority gives other mentally ill people a bad name. (The media does nothing to waylay this -- in fact, they fan the flames.) And second, we have no strong way to help these mentally ill people unless they voluntarily seek out treatment and have the money to pay for it, or end up hospitalized, which is a very temporary, get-in-get-out thing. (And then sometimes, even when these people get treatment, they're not monitored closely enough because they're on an outpatient basis and they choose not to follow their treatment plan.) So these people who don't get the help the help they need end up in prison and on the streets.

This is probably one of our greatest social problems in modern day, equal to the vast inequality gap between the poor and the rich.