Expert says more mental health services won’t stop mass shootings
Mental illness can sometimes be a major factor in violent crimes, but according to at least one expert it might not be one of the root causes for mass shootings.
Dozens of people, mostly high school students attended a symposium on the link between violent crime and mental health at the Cal State San Bernardino Palm Desert Campus.
Members of law enforcement, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office and a criminologist shared their expertise in dealing with people with mental illness in regards to crime.
“It is a major issue for us in law enforcement, we are seeing more of our offenders that are having mental health issues, and not just in the areas of violence, which obviously is a huge concern, but in burglaries and thefts that are occurring as well,” said Dale Mondary, Desert Hot Springs Police Chief.
Some of these experts agree mentally ill people sometimes get a bad wrap or the disease sometimes becomes a scapegoat in the media.
“Most people that have mental illness are not violent, so I don’t want to cast too wide a net and say that everybody who is having a mental problem or illness is necessarily violent, I don’t think the statistics bear that out,” said Michael Hestrin, Riverside County District Attorney.
After extreme violent acts such as the terrorist attack and mass shootings in San Bernardino the topic of mental illness get put into the spotlight.
“Why are we doing it? Are we doing it because we are concerned about the well being of the mentally ill or are we doing it because we are concerned about the well-being of the people they may shoot? I think it’s the latter,” said James Alan Fox, professor of criminology at Northeastern University.
“It only adds to the stigma of mental illness. We should increase access to mental health treatment because of the millions who need help, not because of the dozens who might go on a rampage,” said Fox.
All of these experts agree people like veterans and the homeless need better access to mental health programs, but the problem is the people who would commit mass shootings wouldn’t use those services.
“The problem is in the aftermath we want to round up all the mentally ill people and try to do something about it, but the ones who are most at risk wouldn’t even take us up on our offer to provide treatment for them,” said Fox. “The kind of treatment they want is fair treatment. They see themselves as victims of injustice and they don’t want psychological treatment, that’s for the other guys.”
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