How does society stop a murderer? In the wake of the shooting in Arizona by Jared Lee Loughner, it leaves one perturbed by the fact that some members of our society are suffering from mental illnesses that may cause such violent behavior. Recently, there have been drastic cuts in educational funding, including mental health counselors in many schools across America. Michael Fitzpatrick, the Executive Director for National Alliance on Mental Illness ,issued a statement saying that although the likelihood of violence from people with mental illness is low, ""Arizona, like other states, has deeply cut mental health services. Arizona has a broad civil commitment law to require treatment if it is needed; however, the law cannot work if an evaluation is never conducted or mental health services are not available.""
Our system is letting people slip through the cracks and my question is: At what cost? There needs to be more services offered at schools to organize methods of helping individuals who are showing warning signs for mental illnesses. It could be acting up in class, going through a traumatic experience like divorce, a break-up or death, or drug abuse. Jared Loughner experienced all three. He had multiple incidents with the police at Pima Community College and was ultimately kicked out and was told he would need to take a contingent mental health exam to return. He declined and left the school. Pima Community College has over 70,000 students, yet its health services website doesn't even allow you to make appointments online. There are links to a program called ""webtribes"" that offers an online support community, but there needs to be more funding for face-to-face conversations. There are counselors available, but the message the website seems to be sending is that people should look to information online before physically talking to a human actually educated in the field of mental health.
Loughner's YouTube videos send a clear message that this man was grappling with anger issues and hatred towards the government. He said in the videos that the government is involved in cultural mind control and brainwashing methods. These thoughts are evidence of Loughner's delusions that may have been the manifestations of a psychotic illness like paranoid schizophrenia. Hindsight is, of course, 20/20, and the warning signs are all-too apparent after the fact, but if there was a chance for Mr. Loughner to be able to get help for his problems, I say it is worth the effort and the cost. It appears as if many of his classmates thought that he might commit a violent act. We cannot always force people to be evaluated by mental health professionals, but we can make it easier for people to receive an evaluation.
It's a curious situation where we can place a lot of blame on other people. We can blame the school for not pushing enough for this kid; we can blame the parents for his upbringing, we can blame a culture of violence that produced over 13,000 murder victims in 2009 according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The problem is that blaming other groups doesn't do anything. We need to move on and push for more resources to be allocated for schools to improve their mental health treatment programs. Here on campus, there is an excellent program run through University Health Services that offers free counseling sessions and help for people who need it as well as easy access to online appointment making. I think now is a time to reflect on what our campus values, and what needs to be adjusted on a national level to help allocate more budget money toward mental health services, especially those offered at schools.
Soren Nieminen is senior majoring communication arts. We welcome all feedback. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
