When they are intervened, or sent for eval, they give them a choice. Either commit yourself for a course of treatment or you will be involuntarily committed, which goes on your record.
If they cooperate, the first consult is to diagnose the condition and prescribed medication. If the patient respond well or appears to respond well, they turn them loose with a followup appointment.
All this can happen in 3-5 days, and they don;t have a mechanism to make the patient return. That explains why he was able to buy a gun, and why he sought no more treatment after his initial diagnoses.
We once incarcerated them in boobie hatches, or nut houses, as we affectionately called them. The treatments were lacking then and they rotted in these places. They were all eventually closed.
Right now, it's safe to say that there are thousands of time bombs walking around, and nobody knows when or if they will go off.
Something else needs to be done, to protect society, but I'm not sure if we can do it. We still have not addressed AIDS.
It could be surmised that this is the price for living in a free society.
Good post.
Well stated. I'm so old but as a young nurse worked in one of those "nut houses" for some time. We even used insulin shock therapy in those days. We had about two drugs to use. The advent of modern psychiatric drugs led to treating outpatient. And then of course the changes in insurance sealed it so now these people walk among us. Like you say it is our freedom. Scary.
Good posts. Now I think I get it.
The person who declared him was a “danger” ordered outpatient treatment for him. Ugh.
What needs to change is that if a person is deemed a “danger” then inpatient treatment should be required? So that the mental health professionals can better diagnose and treat the person?
I don’t know what the answer is, either. This has brought back memories of a girl in my college history class. She was odd, to say the least. We wondered why she wasn’t kicked out of the college. Then I found out what her real problem was from a kindly professor who knew I would not gossip about her and would try to befriend her. I did try. But she dropped out of school soon after anyway. It was so sad.
What was the real problem: her father had recently died and her mother was mentally ill. She trying to look after her mother, work and go to school. One day, she came home from class and found her mother had murdered her beloved cat in a most cruel and horrible way and there were parts of the cat all over the house.
Of course the poor child seemed odd. Only a crazy person would NOT freak out in such horrid circumstances. The poor girl was very intelligent and very sweet. If only she had had a chance. I wonder what ever became of her. I still pray for her from time to time.
What can be done? I don’t know.
It seems to me the essential error in the system is that the entire mental health establishment is focused on "the welfare of the patient".
There was an instant in this case where someone declared Cho a "danger to others". THAT should have been a pivot point, causing the establishment to concern itself with public safety over and above the rights of the individual.
It appears that, once treated and released, the university wasn't even informed of the findings. That's ridiculous! There should have been a procedure for informing the school. Given the cite that he was a danger to others the school should have expelled him on the spot. Lacking that, they should have at least monitored him after he was released.
Sadly, we've been saddled with a mental health establishment that believes its patients should be "mainstreamed". No worse---given special privileges to allow them to function in normal society. Public safety is way, way down their list...because in their minds it stigmatizes the mentally ill if we talk about them as "dangerous".
We have to take on that establishment and demand that schools, employers, et al have a venue whereupon they can simply decide an individual represents a risk to public safety and doesn't belong in their environment. To heck with all the politically correct concern about the individual's well being. If he can't conduct himself in a proper, non threatening manner...too bad.