By Alexandra Sukin, Perspectives Editor
After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, intense debates have arisen in the media as to whether there should be increased gun control in the United States. However, such discussions draw attention away from the fact that the shooters at Virginia Tech, a mall in Tucson, a movie theater in Colorado, and, seemingly, Adam Lanza all had serious psychiatric problems. While it is true that only a small percentage of people with serious psychiatric disorders are violent and a significant amount of gun violence is unrelated to mental illness, it is indisputable that psychiatric disease has been a factor in many recent mass murders and that mental health has not received the funding or attention it deserves.
Today, it is extremely difficult to access mental health services due to budgetary constraints. Moreover, many are reluctant to increase the ability to access to inpatient mental health services because of a fear of stigmatizing those who suffer from mental illness as violent and dangerous.
In addition to the reluctance to admit people to mental hospitals, the recession has caused states to drastically cut back on public mental health spending. According to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, in the last four years alone “the public health system has lost more than 3,200 psychiatric hospital beds, almost 6% of the total.” This means that for mothers like Heather Tillman, whose son stabbed a teacher with a pencil, killed the family pet, and was arrested for violence (all before age 9), it
was a constant struggle to get help for her son. Even though now he is currently receiving treatment in a mental hospital, he could be discharged the minute the funding is cut. And that means Tillman will have to worry every day that he will be the next Adam Lanza.
The number of people who desperately need help for their illness is frightening. Ron Manderscheid, executive director of the National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors, explained that “one in three people with ‘severe’ mental illness never receive any treatment at all.” And mental illness is surprisingly
common. Every year nearly 60 million—approximately one in four—Americans experience some sort of mental health issue. Although there is a wide range of illnesses they experience—only a small percentage of which lead to violence against others—many of them are in dire need of help they cannot receive. In fact, in both 2006 and 2009 The National Alliance on Mental Illness gave the USA an overall grade of D for its allocation of mental health care.
The NAMI stresses that budget cuts to mental health care put “tens of thousands of citizens at great risk.” This includes risk to themselves, and others. A USA TODAY analysis calculated that, on average, a mass killing — with four or more victims— occurs once every two weeks in the USA. The cost we pay as a society for the government’s inaction on the mental health care crisis is simply too great to ignore.
Now is a tough time to start expansions of mental health care services, which would require greatly increasing the capacity of community-based mental health services, improving school programs, decreasing the amount of bullying (which may be a trigger for those suffering from mental illness), and teaching people to recognize the signs of mental illness. However, the problem will not solve itself, and it is too important and pervasive to be cast aside while we debate the constitutionality of increased gun control measures.
*For more information about budget cuts for mental illness treatment in Ohio, visit: http://www.nami.org/
