Last week, the Connecticut State Attorney’s office released a 44 page summary of their investigation into the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. In the wake of this report, many articles were published like this one on CNN’s website — “Portrait of Adam Lanza.” Essentially all the articles did was attempt to pick apart investigative details in  search for the answers as to why this had happened, why Mr. Lanza did what he did. The answers aren’t there.  Journalists pulled at details about Adam’s life that may or may not have had anything to do with his egregious actions and touted them as if they were a blueprint to murder. Adam was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Adam pulled his sleeves over his hands to touch things. Adam preferred to communicate with his family members via email. Adam could play Dance Dance Revolution for 10 hour stretches. 10 years ago, Adam drew a cartoon in which an old woman shot people with a cane. After reading several of these articles, I had a picture of a boy and his family who both seemed very much in need of mental health services, not necessarily one of a boy who would end up killing 26 people including his mother. My picture though was painted  with the influence of years spent in undergraduate psychology courses and masters level clinical practice classes. My picture wasn’t necessarily the one that was conjured in the mind of most people reading the article and why would it be?  That’s not what the articles are aiming for, that’s not what the journalists intended. What they intended was to report the facts, the who, the what, and the why. In the course of that though, they seem to be perpetuating the stigma of mental illness and leading the public to believe that the majority of mentally ill persons are violent and dangerous. As social workers and mental health professionals, we know different.

We know that where the mentally ill are most likely to reach our country’s court system is through non-violent misdemeanors and felonies. The prison population in the United States is estimated to be around 2 million inmates. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill estimates that about 16% of these inmates are seriously mentally ill. The effects of incarceration on the severely mentally ill are demonstrated rather poignantly in the Frontline documentary, “The New Asylums”. Take Mr. Robert Bankston for example. During one interview in the film, Mr. Bankston says “In 1989, I snatched a purse. If I had known I was going to have to go through all this, I would have never snatched no purse.” On account of Mr Bankston’s mental illness, he frequently suffers delusions. When he is delusional, he tends to act aggressively with the guards. This has led to Mr. Bankston spending over ten years in prison (much longer than his original sentence), most of which was spent in maximum security facilities. Later in the documentary, Mr. Bankston is released on parole. This is not the first time, he had been released. Mr. Bankston, on several occasions, has violated his parole and been sent back to prison. His parole violations are largely on account of him failing to take his medicine and control his mental illness. The documentary makes the point that there aren’t many options available to Mr. Bankston to seek treatment for his illness once he is released from prison, making his return seem rather inevitable. In a state with the “three strike rule,” Mr. Bankston’s recidivism, entirely on account of his mental illness, could have lead to a life sentence.

This is where I need to climb up on my soapbox because this is where I believe social workers should be called to action.  These are our clients entering the criminal justice system largely based on their diagnosis with mental illness and an inability to access resources in order to control it. Its the veteran with PTSD. Its the substance abuser and the schizophrenic, the homeless youth and the manic mother. Its our clients receiving non-violent felony convictions that bar them vital community resources,from public housing or possibly financial aid to attend college, that could have turned out to be their saving grace. Its OUR clients and OUR potential clients fighting this stigma in their daily lives and so I firmly believe WE who should be fighting there with them. For every 100 articles championing gun control as the answer, it seems like there is just one that suggests an increase in funding to community mental health services. We talk for years about the handful of mentally ill persons who commit violent offenses, yet we rarely discuss the hundreds of thousands sitting in jail currently for non-violent convictions. I see the NRA lobbying all over the place, where is the NASW? Here you see my contribution, where can I see yours?

PS…. Check out this article written last year by one of our Silver School Professors in the Huffington Post.