According to a study done by the Surgeon General on youth violence, 10% to 15% of high school juniors and seniors have been involved in the perpetration of a violent crime.
So by the "logic" of these proposals all students should be screened and watched (including the watchers) and anyone who is a potential time bomb needs to have all records made public. For the good of the majority. Given a generous stat of 4-5% of the population being mentally interesting, I don't think you are all homeschooling. High school is a greater predicator for violence than any mental health issue.
We just don't commit that much crime. In a study published in the August 2006 issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry found that the mentally interesting were responsible for 5% of total violent crime.
How are we portrayed in the media? Glad you asked. From Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice System: "A one-year analysis of television drama programs in the USA found that 73 per cent of people with a mental illness were depicted as violent, while 23 per cent of people were portrayed as homicidal maniacs. When the same study analysed media reports about mental illness on television and in newspapers, it found that nearly 90 per cent of stories depicted people with mental illness as violent and usually homicidal." The rule for news used to be, "if it bleeds it leads." Now in this world of the 24/7 news cycle, Dr. Otto Wahl, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at George Mason University in Virginia has noted "First of all, crime takes a disproportionate amount of news space, and there is a bias toward reporting crimes by people with mental illness," he said. "Crimes connected to mental illness are more likely to lead the news or be on the front page, and there is more multiple, ongoing coverage of crimes involving mentally ill people—arrest, trial, verdict, and sentencing."
Yet we have a lot more to fear from people who are, what's the word, sane. Vol 40 # 17 of American Psychiatric Association has a study showing that we are 11 times more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the general population. In the study mentioned above in the February 2008 issue of Psychiatric Services, where they were looking for how many of us nutjobs committed violent crimes, turns out that over 30% of the people in the study were the victims of violent crimes. The numbers are all over the map in these studies, but the thirties are a good average. We make up 5% of the population. Given that we don't commit violent crimes that are truly disproportionate to our numbers in the population, who cares just how badly we are victimized by the rest of society.
We are after all, the lowest of the low. If one of us goes out on a spree the 24/7 news is looking for the crazy for a week or more. If a pregnant, developmentally disabled woman is tortured to death for two months by six people, including two minors, for her disability checks that's hardly a blip on the national news.
We're less than human. We have no voice in this. Mental illness is the sane man's burden. Take a look at two of the comments from the New York Times piece referenced above:
I think there should be a national register of emotional/mentally disturbed students. Availabe only to the school (& college) administrators.
Human life is more important than a disturbed person's privacy.
Anyone who has been diagnosed as suffering from Mental Illness the medical info should be supplied to staff personnel. Furthermore, if that individual is in need of medication it should not be a voluntary thing. The medicine should be supplied via an electronic implanted pump and refilled, monitored by qualified personnel. It has been shown consistently that these individuals will not consistently take the medication on their own that is vital to their health and societies safety.
These proposals, these comments, these constant news reports looking for and focusing on the crazy are all counter-productive. They all increase a stigmata that are heavy enough to bear: the stigma of being crazy, the stigma of seeking help and the stigma of taking medication. The stigmata that drive us back into the mental health closet, back into the shadows. The stigmata that make us more vulnerable to being attacked. And, when it does happen, the stigmata that make those rare few of us completely lose it and go postal. Oh, did I just use a stereotype? I guess I need a forced shot of medication I don't take on top of the ones I do take. It's not like I'm Ellen DeGeneres, who can make jokes about us all she wants. If she's going to do something like that at least they could be funny jokes.
But I'm just a crazy tard, who cares what I have to say?
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