General Resources / Legal Resources / Medical
Resources / Briefing Papers / State Activity
Hospital Closures / Preventable
Tragedies / Press Room / Search
Our Site / Home
Los Angeles Times
May 27, 1999
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All rights reserved.
OPED
. . . And getting treatment shouldn't be this hard
Society's victims: Margaret Laverne Mitchell's death is one more example of a failed
government policy.
By E. Fuller Torrey and Mary Zdanowicz
Margaret Laverne Mitchell, who was
shot to death last Friday after she allegedly lunged at a Los Angeles police officer with
a screwdriver, should not have been condemned to a life of homelessness nor should she
have died at the hands of an officer ill prepared to deal with her mental illness. As
described by her son, Mitchell was victimized both by her illness and by state treatment
laws too weak to help her.
Homelessness, violence, incarceration, suicide and
victimization are the cruel side effects of the two severest forms of untreated mental
illness, schizophrenia and manic depression. Half of those who have these illnesses don't
realize they are sick and in need of treatment, nor do they recognize that their
symptoms--hallucinations, delusions, paranoia and withdrawal--are, in fact, symptoms. And
since they don't know they are sick, they don't take their medications, and this is
perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the current law. The law prohibits treating
individuals over their objections until they pose a danger to themselves or others. In
other words, someone must have a finger on the trigger of a gun or be caught jumping off
the Golden Gate Bridge before they get medical help.
Many states have abandoned the dangerousness standard for
treatment, which California still maintains. These states consider factors such as mental
deterioration, being unaware of a need for treatment and having a history of medication
noncompliance or violence. Mitchell's son tried repeatedly to get help for his mother but
met with nothing but brick walls and bureaucratic red tape from state health and law
enforcement officials. His mother had not tried to kill anyone, including herself, so
their hands were tied.
In California, the 1969 Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, which
governs the treatment of the mentally ill, is based on outdated, nonscientific ideas, not
on current scientific studies. The fact that under this law, people with severe mental
illnesses can be treated involuntarily only under the most extreme circumstances has had,
and continues to have, dire consequences for Californians:
* California's homeless total more than 49,000--one-third of
whom are thought to have untreated severe mentall illness. That number is about the same
as the population of Davis or San Rafael. This is an urban disaster, especially in cities
such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Monica.
* Approximately 10% of the inmates of California jails and
prisons are severely mentally ill. Many were arrested for minor crimes that were the
direct consequence of their untreated illness.
* A California study reported that police now spend more
time responding to mental health crises than to robbery calls. When police confront
severely mentally ill individuals who are out of control, the encounter can turn deadly.
Last year, for example, Tom Neville in Fresno, Brian Burgos in Los Angeles, Han Huynh in
Ventura and Doron Lifton in San Francisco--all of whom were suffering from mental
illness--died in police shootings.
* According to various studies, persons with untreated
mental illnesses are 10 to 15 times more likely to commit suicide or die of accidental
deaths; almost three times more likely to be the victim of violent crimes and, in the case
of severely mentally ill women, two to three times more likely to have been raped.
* Nationally, it has been reported that approximately 1,000
homicides each year are committed by individuals with severe mental illnesses, almost all
of whom were not being treated at the time.
In February, California Assemblywoman Helen Thomson
(D-Davis) took a step in the right direction by holding a joint Assembly-Senate hearing on
the criminalization of the untreated mentally ill. She, like many others around the
country, recognizes that mandatory treatment for those too ill to understand their need
for treatment is a more humane intervention than what we end up with now: mandatory
nontreatment.
The legal standard for assisted treatment should be the
person's need for medical care, not his or her danger to self or others. Society has an
obligation to save people from degradation, not just death. This does not mean that we
will have to reopen all the psychiatric hospitals that were closed as a result of
deinstitutionalization. Most individuals with severe mental illnesses who have experienced
serious deterioration in rational thought can live in the community with the proper
medications. But, for some, living in the community must be conditioned on medication
compliance.
California's laws miserably failed Margaret Mitchell and her family. Stronger
assisted treatment laws would help prevent such tragedies in the future and give every
Californian the chance to live a safer and more productive life.
general
resources | legal resources | medical
resources | briefing papers | state activity
hospital closures | preventable
tragedies | press room | search
| home
The contents of TAC's website are copyrighted by the Treatment Advocacy Center unless otherwise indicated. All rights reserved and content may be reproduced, downloaded, disseminated, or transferred, for single use, or by nonprofit organizations for educational purposes only, if correct attribution is made. TAC is an I.R.C. � 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation. Donations are appreciated and are eligible for the charitable contribution deduction under the provisions of I.R.C. � 170. Please note that TAC does not accept funding from pharmaceutical companies or entities involved in the sale, marketing, or distribution of such products. Treatment Advocacy
Center (TAC) |