New legislation designed to keep mentally ill murderers - Your opinion is???????
- Thread starter Goober
- Start date
Honestly, I don't know how we can without violating someone's rights. The question then becomes, and it is the much, much harder question to be sure, do we do it in spite of that?
Take the case of Vince Li for example. No doubt the man is seriously mentally ill, unmedicated he's proven to be extremely dangerous. I have, despite the atrocious act he committed, an extreme amount of sympathy and empathy for the man. I can't imagine the depths of pain and sorrow he must feel to have done what he's done and to be aware and care about it. What does that do to a person, that knowledge? How that must torment him, every day, as the cocktail of medication keeps him lucid and in complete understanding of what he's done. So can we trust he'll continue to take his medication of his own free will and continue to face that torment on his own? Do we release him and hope he stays on his meds? Or do we continue to keep him confined, possibly for the rest of his life, in an effort to prevent further harm to not only others but ultimately Vince Li himself?
It's not an easy answer, by any stretch of the imagination. Hell it is a damned difficult question to even ask in the first place. I think we've got to ask it though. We don't ask enough tough questions in society.
Thanks, it's sometimes a bit harder to do than to hold...lol.And that is an excellent philosophy to have.-
As long as we keep learning, we are good.
Also just to clarify, people can have mental illness and do absolutely no harm but I think we start getting into the dangerous territory when we are dealing with psychosis and breaks with reality.
They should make us uncomfortable. That discomfort is what will prevent us from taking things just that little bit too far, from being too cold and logical or too emotional and irrational.
Maybe I guess what I'm getting at is this may be one of those issues where we don't wait for the pendulum to swing, maybe we need to force a balance.
Yes and another problem I see here right off is...if we can keep someone lucid with drugs after they have committed a heineous crime, what kind of treatment is valid.
I mean really, they need to be treated at a certain level of comfort. People would be going off the rails thinking that they were well treated. I hear people speak in such cases about how, they would like to be alone with people "like this" for just five minutes. I know it's just a lack of understanding on their part but it's a hard one to justify to people who "don't get it, but think they do."
It's a heavy, heavy moral, and ethical responsibility.
What the gov't is full of is ( yes that, but also) people who follow the tide of comfort/discomfort of the people who vote for them. This is a societal issue and government is not necessary to get a dialogue going.
Don't get me wrong, for the most part I do believe that the best way for change to occur is for it to occur naturally. For most things that means waiting out the pendulum (to continue on with that same analogy). Forcing a change is difficult, that's where the discomfort comes in for many people, but not all you're right about that. It's necessary though, particularly with the issue of mental illness. There are just too many people really and truly suffering on all sides to wait for time to sort it all out.
That kind of highlights the very common misunderstandings of what mental illness is all about. How can we, as a large group (society), deal with something we so many of us don't really understand what we're dealing with?
I don't know. Is it more compassionate to not bring them fully to a level of reality? Somehow it seems a horrific notion doesn't it? Keeping someone just crazy enough to not understand the horror they've committed?
It's an absolutely horrific notion to face that someone could do such horrible things and actually care and feel the pain for what they've done. Like Bear said, it makes people uncomfortable. It's easier to think of them as monsters.
But just because we shouldn't think of them as monsters does not mean we shouldn't all be very realistic with the damage that they can do. To themselves or to others.
Tough love in a sense. It's maybe not so much what you're doing (keeping people confined) as it's the reason why you're doing it? I don't know, best I can articulate it right now.
For the most part, individuals who have mental health issues are not a threat to anyone but themselves. Often, the medications they're on have side affects that are untenable and so they go off the meds to feel better. Unfortunately, they also become "ill" again (not that they never were) but you get my meaning. Having worked in the past with people who had mental health issues, the most prevelant issue was keeping them on their medications. The individuals that came to our agency were, for the most part, very gentle and loving individuals who happen to have mental health problems.
Now in the case of Vince Li, he's a different animal completely. While he is not responsible for being ill, we do need to protect society from him and it becomes a balancing act between either keeping him in an institution for the rest of his life or ensuring that he takes his medications on a daily basis, even if by force. In todays world, unfortunately, the words "institution" and "force" are big no nos, i.e. not politically correct) but the fact remains that, while the vast majority of mental health clients are harmless, we do need to take seriously the .05 or 1% or whatever percentage of those who are SERIOUSLY ill and SERIOUSLY present a danger the to the public. I'm not advocating locking him up in a celler either - I'm saying the need to be kept out of the general population, permanently in an environment that treats them as human beings albeit really sick human beings.
As for the doctor, I have NEVER believed he was mentally ill and I still don't - don't care what the so call professionals say - I don't know why I'm so adamant about this - call it a "gut" feeling and he too, should never see the light of day - preferably in a jail cell and not an institution.
JMHO
Now in the case of Vince Li, he's a different animal completely. While he is not responsible for being ill, we do need to protect society from him and it becomes a balancing act between either keeping him in an institution for the rest of his life or ensuring that he takes his medications on a daily basis, even if by force. In todays world, unfortunately, the words "institution" and "force" are big no nos, i.e. not politically correct) but the fact remains that, while the vast majority of mental health clients are harmless, we do need to take seriously the .05 or 1% or whatever percentage of those who are SERIOUSLY ill and SERIOUSLY present a danger the to the public. I'm not advocating locking him up in a celler either - I'm saying the need to be kept out of the general population, permanently in an environment that treats them as human beings albeit really sick human beings.
As for the doctor, I have NEVER believed he was mentally ill and I still don't - don't care what the so call professionals say - I don't know why I'm so adamant about this - call it a "gut" feeling and he too, should never see the light of day - preferably in a jail cell and not an institution.
JMHO
I wasn't referring to the ones who are harmless, just the ones with a murderous history.
The most "detrimental health issue" probably varies depending on who you ask. The person who needs the heart transplant may rightfully feel he has the most detrimental health issue.
Or from lack of exercise or from excessive smoking or from bad diet or from inherited factors!
I think stress is pretty well the common denominator of all people with a brain. I believe it can work both ways, kill you or preserve you. There are two kinds of stress................ that which you can do something about and that which you can do nothing about. It's important to recognize which you are suffering from. With first kind get busy, with the second take each day as it comes and don't go knocking yourself out trying "to make things happen". It's very important for a person to have enough things to occupy his/her mind.