"Unabomber's brother on violence and treating mental health," is David Kaczynski's OpEd from the Houston Chronicle. He's the Executive Director of New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. New York no longer has capital punishment; the organization now works to reduce root causes of violence
In the late 1980′s, my brother Ted Kaczynski, then living in an isolated cabin in Montana, sought mental health treatment. He didn't know that he had schizophrenia, but he knew that he couldn't sleep and that he felt incredibly anxious around people. He requested help in a letter to the county mental health service. He was informed by return letter that he had to appear in person at the clinic 60 miles away and that he had to find a way to pay for treatment. Since Ted had no money, and since his paranoia and deep shame made it overwhelmingly difficult for him to apply for welfare benefits, he never received any treatment.
Hindsight is always 20/20. It's easy to say, in the aftermath of a horrific tragedy, that someone should have done something to help these troubled men before they turned violent. But as I have expressed in earlier posts, there are no easy answers that jump out from these tragedies. Most people with mental illness are not at all dangerous. Most people who indulge violent fantasies or who make veiled threats at some point in their lives never act on them. So how do we distinguish between the merely troubled person and someone who is likely to carry out violence?
Unfortunately, in place of struggling with these serious and difficult questions, the default position often involves focusing on "strong" punishment. For example, conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg believes that James Holmes should get the death penalty, arguing that he is "probably not" mentally ill (hunh?). Perhaps Goldberg believes that the next potential mass murderer will be deterred from taking lives if we take Holmes' life – but I suspect Goldberg is much too smart to believe that. Rather, I suspect that Goldberg – who doesn't much like or trust big government – is willing to make an exception in the case of the death penalty in order to spare us from having to wrestle with more complicated issues, such as the difficulty of reconciling our commitment to constitutional rights/civil liberties with our desire to intervene before the next disaster happens.
But by ignoring the reality of mental illness – by assuming as a matter of ideology that just about everyone is a free, autonomous actor entirely responsible for their own actions – we effectively absolve ourselves from any responsibility to the next group of victims. And that is being irresponsible.
Related posts are in the mental illness index. Additional response to syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg's column is also available.
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