PSYCHOTICS: How to deal with them
Haven't we had enough? The massacres done by loners such as Jared Loughner continue in frequency and sophisticated ferocity.
After the fact we find lots of evidence that these horrors could have been avoided. "We let them slip through our fingers," I hear. No, we drop them like hot potatoes!
Something more must be done. I propose each state must set up very special places to keep them for the rest of their lives. And we must make completely adequate ways to screen them and isolate them long before they can accomplish their elaborately planned, murderous deeds.
Do you know how difficult it is to get a psychotic (one prone to harm himself or others) committed? Permit me to list some who see the problems and long to help fix them, but encounter walls of legal regulations and societal mores. (Greatly oversimplified for brevity.)
PARENTS: They have given up. They tried, but found no adequate help. Practicing the popular "unconditional love" they just feed and house the misfit, but never look into his private quarters.
SCHOOLS: Teachers, principals and counselors usually can identify these miscreants very early in their education. But their options are limited.
POLICE: The jails can hold them for only a few days unless they have committed a crime.
CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS: They are not prepared or equipped to take on severely psychotic individuals who are proving themselves to be beyond remedy.
THE MILITARY: Shame on anyone who imagines that the military would want them so it could try to straighten them out.
HOSPITALS/REST OF MENTAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM: None of them want them for long term.
BEHAVIORAL SCIENTISTS: Only the psychiatrist is technically allowed to commit the psychotic. But commit to where? We really have no place adequate for him. The psychiatrist can drug him clear down. But who wants that as prolonged care for these dangerous ones?
CLERGY: God does miracles, but He reserves the right to say, "No, you take care of it."
So I insist we need to provide adequate screening, isolation and specialized care for our few who should not, must not be left at large in society.
EARL D. HUNTER
Coeur d'Alene