Jeffrey Geller and our friend Sally Satel have an op-ed in USA Today arguing for mandatory reporting of mental illness:
Perhaps it is time to require action. When a school or business feels the need to protect itself from someone who is mentally ill, perhaps it should be required to try to protect others, too.
Thus, if a school or a business ejects or otherwise removes a student or employee out of concern about behavior and dangerousness, the principal, dean, or head of the Human Resources department would be required, under a mandatory reporting law, to inform the medical director of the appropriate public health jurisdiction. This public official would then have to initiate an evaluation which might lead to a face-to-face evaluation and, depending upon its outcome, possibly involuntary treatment.
Precedents exist. There are mandatory reporting laws for child abuse. Teachers and medical professionals cannot just look the other way when they see a child with multiple, suspicious bruises. The same logic applies here: a severely ill person battered by psychosis should not be left at the mercy of a condition that causes others to be worried for their safety.
I like it. 'If you see something, say something' for the potentially violent mentally ill.
If a student sits next to the door in a classroom out of fear that a fellow student is going to whip out a gun and shoot them all, that student should say something.
If a college gets reports like that from students and teachers, demonstrating a clear and present danger posed by some student (or teacher) that they decide must be removed from campus for the safety of the campus, then they should report it to mental health authorities - without fears or condemnation.
How else will the next strip mall attack be foiled if the student only looks out for personal safety and the campus only looks out for campus safety?
We have to stop the madness.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI just don't see how this is workable. Such a proposal as this is rife for abuse. Exactly what will be the definition of mentally ill? Anyone whom an employer, teacher, doctor, in-law, etc simply didn't like or found suspicious would be reported mentally ill. Then, regardless of whether or not there is an actual mental illness that tag will follow that person the rest of their life and possibly inhibit their full participation in society and full enjoyment of constitutional rights, particularly those protected by the 2nd Amendment.
I'm sure we can all imagine the scenario now: Lefty prof has a conservative student whose views he just can't stand. So lefty prof reports the student as being mentally ill. (And why not, he does consider conservatism to be a mental illness?) Kid gets yanked out of school, committed, psychoanalyzed and God only knows what else. Finally, after losing a year on his education, being screwed over on his student loans, and unable to get any work becaouse of his history of having been committed, the kid can no longer buy a gun even though he's been given a clean bill of mental health....because no one wants to risk selling a gun to someone who's been committed, even if wrongfully.
That's just one of hundreds of awful scenarios that will play out if we go down this road.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs the full op-ed says, "...many people seem at risk for violence toward others, but so few actually are."
So, what people will be 'reported' by a college or university?
Veterans. Students who voice support for smaller government, the 2nd amendment, lower taxes. Anyone who speaks in support of the TEA party. People who wear Sarah Palin T-Shirts.
The potential for harassment of protected (and indeed unexceptional) speech are limitless. The authors should consider walking this idea back, smartly.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou can also report on your enemies and make false accusations. Or if someone had a bad day help make it a really bad year or rest of their life by turning them in.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI hate that "see something, say something" is turning us into a nation of snitches. How about talking to those closer to that person ie parents before bringing the state and its bureacracy into things.
Any guesses on how long it will be before a college professor ejects and reports one of her students for defending the second amendment, or some other politically incorrect attitude? Instead of "don't ask don't tell" as social policy we'll have "eject and report". Wonder how that will encourage healthy debate on campuses. Consider also what might happen with mangers, employees and unions being handed this new power - the power to "eject and report" which then triggers a mandatory mental health evaluation by an employee of the state. Sounds like a potential disaster.
The fact is that Loughner had enough run ins with the police that he could have been detained for a mental health evaluation in time to prevent this tragedy. Turning schools and businesses into branches of state mental health bureaucracies and law enforcement, with all the potential for corruption that creates, is a bad and dangerous idea.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"There are mandatory reporting laws for child abuse. Teachers and medical professionals cannot just look the other way when they see a child with multiple, suspicious bruises. The same logic applies here"
No it doesn't.
bruises are objective
"psychosis" is subjective
Refer to the Peter Singer piece in Time mag from yesterday, those who don't agree with him are crazy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI understand what they're trying to accomplish, and I think it's a conversation that from a public policy standpoint, needs to take place. But I'm not entirely sure this is the best approach, especially with respect to the added burden it places on business.
I wonder if there would be additional legal liability for American business created by this kind of legislation. Let's say an employer fires or disciplines an employee for what may be perceptibly aggressive behavior, but not necessarily criminal behavior and that employer doesn't report the dismissal/discipline to anyone. Is the employer exposing themselves to litigation from any (possible) future victims of the dismissed or disciplined employee?
And, what happens when we have an employer acting maliciously in "reporting" an (completely sane) employee to a public health official, in a libelous way. Would that defamed employee have any cause for action or would the employer enjoy some kind of statutory immunity in their reporting obligation and/or discretion.
Like a lot of legislation, the devil would be in the details, and I would hope that whatever Congress does, it takes its time and thinks deeply about such a requirement before taking action. Reflexive legislation is frequently unhelpful after implementation and sometimes even makes bad situations worse.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm thankful such a law didn't exist when I was doodling "Black Sabbath" onto my desk in 10th grade geometry.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo, will the CDC publish a Malleus Maleficarum for all the budding psycho-hunters out there?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMy first reaction was "this won't work", but when you add the proviso that a school or business have to have excluded the person for fear of violence then it make more sense.
This isn't about people just reporting someone they don't like as mentally ill.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOverreaction.
Slippery slope.
And would not have prevented Tuscon.
Tuscon was a failure of enforcement; and the unpredictable actions such a person as Loughner can be minimized, not eliminated, by society.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis sounds rather reasonable actually. I think the key is that you would only be expected to report someone to the authorities if the behavior is severe enough that it results in forcible removal. Even radical left wing professors generally lack the ability to get a student expelled simply for being politically incorrect.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis proposal is insane. It mirrors what the USSR had from the 1940s-1980s. Now employers not only are tax collectors, they are required to turn in employees they deem "suspect". It is one thing to call the police because Sid the Mechanic threatend to kill a fellow employee; it is quite another to report to "authorities" that Sid is acting "strange". And as Scott Wilson points out in an ealrier post, this law could easily be abused.
The Soviets used to lock away thier political dissidents in mental insitutions. In the old USSR it was deemed an illness to have rebellious thoughts.
Also, I thought the authors made a poor anaolgy. Child abuse is a felony; being weird is not. If this passes, I could also imagine that any citizen taking any kind of presecribed medication for some mental disorder being flagged. We already see doctors privately grilling children patients about the behavior of thier parents (does you father drink? Does your mother smoke? etc...). This is just another turn down a slippery slope.
Arizona already had laws on the books prior to the massacre. This crime was committed not because there wasn't enough laws or rules, but because the authorities didn't execute the existing laws.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"And would not have prevented Tuscon."
I'm not so sure about that. The reporting of the last several days makes it clear that Loughner purchased his weapon some eight weeks after he was suspended from school for his bizarre and unsettling behavior. And, he was only suspended after a previous five visits from campus police, who had to be called to either remove Loughner from the classroom, or to intervene in some other way.
Loughner, if nothing else, is a perfectly reasonable illustration that shows action could have been taken; Perhaps the tragedy couldn't have been prevented (after all, he could have driven into that gathered crown rather than fired into it), but with such a system, Loughner could have been added to the FBI database which would have not allowed him to purchase that firearm.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"So, what are your parents doing this evening little Klaus. They say anything bad about the fuhrer? How about the couple next door?"
Yes, this should work out well. Even better then "Zero Tolerance".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's
Scott,
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Campus Police already had the power to have Loughner held for psychiatric observation ( I am assuming they are actual police/peace officers and not security guards). They did not. Any situation involving law enforcement can lead to psychiatric evaluations, we have no need to give untrained people the ability to trigger a psych eval. Any behavior that would warrant such an action should also warrant a call to the police.
anyone who agrees with this demonstrates mental instability and must be reported.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is really troubling to me how many of my conservative and Christian friends are so fearful about security measures being turned around to infringe on their freedoms to such an irrational extreme that they will not back common sense security measures.
Seriously? This many of you are afraid you will be accused and locked up under an attempt to identify potentially violent mentally ill people?
You are certainly demonstrating how "rights" indoctrination by the Left has turned us into a bunch of Pavlov's dogs.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Seriously? This many of you are afraid you will be accused and locked up under an attempt to identify potentially violent mentally ill people?"
We have laws already in place that not only "identify" potentially violent mentally ill people. We have the people to execute those laws. They are called police and the District Attorney. They must follows laws, and observe due process. People are arrested and order to under go mental evaluation only after they've broke laws and demonstrated to the police and the DA that they are dangerous. Again, there is something called Due Process.
What this article demands is that private citizens be vested with the same authority as the police. By vestige of thier authority running a private organization they are given (without any consent of the governed) extra civic authority, which can wield signficant power to harm. A phone call from the dean can lead to the arrest, imprisonment, and an instrusive medical evaluation of a perfectly healthy student who is just a "troublemaker". And once this information gets uploaded to HHS, the FBI, or Homeland Security who knows what damage it will do.
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