First Person, Singular: “The Seduction of Preventive Detention”

Thanks to Johanna for sharing this story:

I had a friend who was stabbed to death by his adult son with schizophrenia. The son had just been released from three days in the hospital where they gave him a wild assortment of “antipsychotic” drugs including Haldol. The guy had a long documented history of adverse reactions to Haldol. He begged them not to shoot him up with that stuff. But hell, what does a crazy person know?

So my friend is dead, his family is devastated, and most everyone who knows of the tragedy blames “the terrible disease.” His family knows that the disease is indeed terrible, but that without Haldol (and the unknown cocktail of other powerful shit) the tragedy would probably have never happened.

I wonder how much of the serious violence caused by mentally ill people (and it is out there) is linked to akathesia, withdrawal reactions, and other very very scary effects of these much-ballyhooed drugs? At any rate, I wish to hell my friend’s son had had a choice. I would hate to see a guy in his shoes court-ordered to take some shit that was tearing him up inside, because a doctor convinced a parent, who convinced a judge, that it was “for his own good.”

Preventive detention is a seductive idea, and not only for the mentally ill. Many societies have tried to lock up those with “criminal dispositions” as a way to prevent awful crimes. (In the old soviet union it was known as being “socially dangerous”). It always comes back to bite the average citizen. Always. I don’t support it for the nineteen year old kid on the corner who is “obviously a gangbanger” and I don’t support it for the “dangerously mentally ill” who haven’t committed any crimes “yet.”

liz | 2:05 PM | Uncategorized