The Insanity Offense: How America's Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens

by E. Fuller Torrey

Overview

"Vital for all working in the mental health field . . . . Fascinating reading for anyone." —Choice

E. Fuller Torrey, the author of the definitive guides to schizophrenia and manic depression, chronicles a disastrous swing in the balance of civil rights that has resulted in numerous violent episodes and left a vulnerable population of mentally ill people homeless and victimized. Interweaving in-depth accounts of landmark cases in California, Wisconsin, and North Carolina with a history of legislation and changes in the mental health care system, Torrey gives shape to the magnitude of our failure and outlines what needs to be done to reverse this ongoing—and accelerating—disaster. A new epilogue on the 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona, brings this tragic story up to date.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393068887
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/17/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

E. Fuller Torrey is a research psychiatrist specializing in schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. He is the founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center and the executive director for laboratory research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Preface     xi
Acknowledgments     xv
Introduction: The Origins of a Disaster     1
Death by the Roadside     9
Thirteen Murders to Prevent an Earthquake     24
"The Odds Are Still in Society's Favor"     41
The Killing of Three Devils     69
The Sad Legacy of Ms. Lessard     82
God Does Not Take Medication     111
The Consequences of Unconstrained Civil Liberties: Homeless, Incarcerated, and Victimized     123
The Consequences of Unconstrained Civil Liberties: Violent and Homicidal     140
An Imperative for Change     161
Fixing the System     177
Coda: Death by the Roadside     197
U.S. Studies of the Prevalence of Serious Violence by Psychiatric Patients Living in the Community     209
Studies from Other Countries of Homicides Committed by Individuals with Psychotic Disorders     213
Notes     219
Index     251

Editorial Reviews

The ill effects of not providing proper treatment for people with serious mental disorders has become all too apparent in recent years, writes research psychiatrist and treatment advocate Torrey (Surviving Manic-Depression). Released en masse from institutions beginning in the 1960s, the most severely ill are "most likely to become homeless, incarcerated, victimized, and/or violent." Torrey details how civil liberties suits have prevented such people from being involuntarily institutionalized, leaving them a danger both to themselves and to others. Confronting these issues head on, Torrey offers both the clinical and the anecdotal, citing several tragic examples: in the case of Cho Seung-Hui, the 2007 Virginia Tech killer, he faults both the university and stringent state laws regarding involuntary commitment for neglecting to treat a clearly very ill young man. This reform-minded book calls for a change in laws affecting how mentally ill people are treated, keeping close track of those with a history of violent behavior and creating a more comprehensive treatment approach. Chilling and well documented, this text has many no-nonsense solutions to protect the mentally ill themselves as well as society as a whole. (July)

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Publishers Weekly

According to research psychiatrist Torrey (Surviving Manic Depression), one percent of America's schizophrenic and other seriously mentally ill people is dangerous, a subgroup that numbers 40,000 in the United States. Here, he offers three explanations for this nationwide threat: deinstitutionalization, which allowed for the emptying of state hospitals without providing adequate community mental-health services, opposition to enforced treatment by antipsychiatry conservatives and liberal defenders of civil rights, and the failure of mental health advocates and professionals to address or even study the problem for fear of stigmatizing all psychiatric patients. Today, he writes, ten percent of this country's jail inmates and one-third of its homeless are seriously mentally ill; of the latter group, 25 percent are victims of violent crime annually. Torrey believes that court-enforced treatment, including involuntary commitment and monitored medication, would allow many to function adequately and make us all safer. His critical analysis, which effectively mixes dramatic narratives and chilling statistics, calls for changing policies that have proved inhumane, costly, and dangerous. An important, powerful, and thoroughly researched book; essential for most libraries.
—E. James Lieberman

Library Journal

Torrey's book describes a nation that has been unable to come up with a humane mental health policy—one that protects the ill from their own demons and society from their rare but deadly outbursts.

David Brooks - New York Times