Enforced Treatment vs. Prison for Acute Mental Patients and Updates, by Mary Neal

Who's child is this?  It is not often that the public gets to see the loss of control that mental patients sometimes suffer:

<http://youtube.com/watch?v=-NZtGz_7WI0> 

The unfortunate girl in this video is obviously disturbed, just as the caption says.  People like this child illustrate the reason for my advocacy for the 1.25 million mentally disabled PRISONERS in America who should have better options for inpatient care, and mandates for continuous outpatient treatment upon release from hospitals.  Across America, mental hospitals are closing.  This child does not belong in jail, but that is probably where she is now or soon will be, because homelessness, jail, and death are this country's current answers to mental illness.

Many schizophrenic and bi-polar persons, as well as people suffering post traumatic stress disorder and other mental dysfunctions, may experience intense psychotic episodes if not receiving treatment.  Sometimes, their psychosis results in self-inflicted injuries and suicides and murders of innocent people.  Most often, however, the mentally ill do not actually harm anyone, but imagine the trauma to these people -- the anguish they must feel!

It takes no special training in psychiatry or psychology to see that the child in this video suffers from extreme paranoia.  She feels threatened by a fellow passenger on the train, an elderly woman.  Later, the girl accused another passenger of being someone who raped her.  Perhaps the child really has been raped by someone in her past -- some people take advantage of the mentally ill, many of whom wander in our society vulnerable and unprotected.  See http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com

Why does America keep closing its mental institutions?  This trend has resulted in our current overcrowded prison conditions and put a tremendous and unnecessary burden on our criminal justice system.  Do you believe the child in this video needs rehabilitation, or treatment?  Do you believe that if someone asks her if she would like to accept mental health treatment that she would agree to same?  From years of visiting the mental asylum where my schizophrenic brother was, I can assure you of one fact:  Many, if not most, acutely mentally ill persons do not acknowledge, believe, or accept that they are sick, especially not during a psychotic episode.

Could it be that mental institutions closing and the barriers to mental health treatment are allowed in order to deliberately increase prison populations for the sake of owners and stockholders of private prisons?  Certainly, this would be too cruel to imagine.  Consider the article by Dr. Posner, link below:

Original Content at

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_moss_dav_070909_your_children_and_fr.htm

September 9, 2007
Your Children and Friends are Dying in Prison--here's why
by Moss David Posner, M.D. -- I was a physician with the California Department of Corrections for almost five years, before I was forced out. I’m putting my burden down now. I’m out of the picture, but I want to say a few things to you.

I believe it is UNFAIR to ask a person who is obviously delusional if she WANTS mental health services.  This decision should not be hers to make.  I believe it is unfair to punish a person in this mental state for anything she does wrong - she would obviously be not guilty for reason of insanity.  If police had stormed the train, would they have thought the paper in the girl's hand was a knife and possibly shot her?  Suppose the child also has a heart condition.  If she is ever Tasered for erratic behavior, would that kill her?  How often are taxpayers asked to bear the burden of lawsuits for wrongful death of mentally ill persons who died in restraint chairs, by Taser, or as a result of possible excessive force by police officers?  Would it not be much more reasonable to increase the availability of mental health services -- inpatient and outpatient -- and to relax the barriers to mental health care for those who may not recognize their own need for treatment?

Many law officers would like to get back to fighting crime and cease from being the nation's psychiatric caretakers.  Let us please join together to see that we offer better than homelessness, jail, and death to our mentally disable citizens 

SURVEY:  PRISONS OR HOSPITALS?
 
http://www.surveymo nkey.com/ s.aspx?sm= eBWphMwXQnxAi6m_ 2bLKqUEw_ 3d_3d  

People who are currently imprisoned for exhibiting such behavior are convicted for breaking laws such as the girl in the video may have committed:  disturbing the peace, public nuisance, perhaps assault on the elderly commuter.  So mental health organizations that object to enforced hospitalization unless someone has proven to be a danger to himself or others (meaning smoking guns and dripping knives) should have NOTHING TO SAY when mentally ill prisoners, who have already forfeited their right to freedom and self-determination, are hospitalized instead of serving prison terms that can do nothing to rehabilitate them.  Neither can sick people be punished into a state of mental health.

Below is a link to a HealthTalk interview with William B. Lawson, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Howard University College of Medicine.  Research shows African-Americans are more likely than other groups  to feel stigmatized by mental illness. Listen as Dr. Lawson answers questions posed by mental health experts and African-American community leaders as they examine how to promote change.

African-Americans and the Stigma of Mental Illness
Listen to the replay

Who's child is depicted in the video?  She's all of ours.  Let us work together to help her and those like her to get the treatment they need, not prison!  Not Tasered to death during an arrest attempt!  Not left in a cold prison cell, naked to prevent suicide!  Not strapped to a restraint chair, which kills mental patients in jails with regularity!  Let us use a more sane, humane approach to address acute mental illness among our citizens.  Jail or hospitalization?  You decide.

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UPDATE 5/13/08 -- DISTURBED YOUNG WOMAN IN VIDEO PLACED UNDER ARREST FOR HAVING BI-POLAR CRISIS ON ATLANTA TRAIN

I first wrote a week ago about a young lady who appeared to be in the grips of a psychotic episode, which was captured on film.  The video was moved to You Tube, where it was very widely viewed.  Many of the people commenting on the video on You Tube were very critical of the young woman, who her family reports is bi-polar and off her medications.  Even acutely mentally ill persons now have the right to decide whether or not to accept treatment for their conditions, and unfortunately, the young lady is like many persons who are too ill to make wise decisions in this area.  Therefore, she has now joined the 1.25 million mental patients in our criminal justice system.   

Rather than enforcing treatment, which makes sense to me, the State now has the duty to incarcerate Nafiza Ziyad, provide her an attorney (if she cannot afford an attorney and requests one), hold expensive court hearings and/or a trial, and perhaps then incarcerate her for the length of her sentence.  The expense her arrest creates for taxpayers,  Nafiza's trauma during incarceration, and much stress to her family could and should have been avoided IF ONLY we had sensible laws in our country giving families the right to dictate psychiatric treatment for mentally ill family members BEFORE mental patients prove themselves to be a danger to self and others.

Nafiza has now joined the 1.25 million mentally ill people who are already imprisoned in our great country, which fights for human rights around the world.  Please pray with me that she does not come to harm.  Each year, mental patients are Tasered or placed in Restraint Chairs in jails and prisons across our country, killing some.  When prisoners die under these circumstances, taxpayers are often required to bear the additional burden of paying lawsuits brought by families who were essentially denied the opportunity to save their loved ones by enforcing psychiatric treatment.

If I could afford it, I would like to track Nafiza's as she progresses through the legal system and record the emotional and mental stress she undergoes as a mental patient criminalized for her disability.  I would like to be able to report to you how long it takes for her to be assessed for her mental condition and prescribed any medications she may need.  (Some mental patients are kept behind bars for months without psychiatric assessment and treatment, although this may not happen to Nafiza, especially since we are sharing the information.)  For the sake of those who have little or no consideration for Nafiza and her family who are very worried and suffering tonight, I would also like to track the expense that Nafiza's criminalization causes taxpayers in Georgia for her arrest, incarceration pending trial, attorney fees, hearing(s), trial, and further incarceration, if she is sentenced to serve time.  It would be interesting to compare the expense of this exercise (criminalizing Nafiza's mental illness) to the possible expense that her enforced psychiatric treatment would have entailed. 

People like Nafiza do not usually vote, so please take the survey above and register your opinion about criminalizing mental illness.  Participants' identities are protected by the survey company, and even I will not have contact data for you unless you choose to enter it onto one of the fields in the survey.  Also, consider working together with me to fund Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ("AIMI") so that we can be better prepared to gather and report data to bring an end to such injustice and unnecessary expenditure of taxpayer dollars.

It appears to me that the only people who really stand to gain by the continuation of withholding treatment to our nation's mental patients unless/until they prove to be a danger to selves and others are possibly those who invest in private prisons.

Here is a link to the news story regarding Nafiza’s arrest: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2008/05/13/marta_0514.html

YouTube video leads to MARTA arrest
Young woman shown pitching a fit, threatening elderly woman on train

By Ariel Hart
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published: 05/13/08 

MARTA officials said they have arrested Nafiza Ziyad, 25, as the result of an online video in which a young woman appears to be threatening an elderly woman on a MARTA train. The video, posted on YouTube two weeks ago, has drawn more than 7,000 comments on the site and been viewed 600,000 times.

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UPDATE 5-14-08  -- TELEVISED INTERVIEW with Nafiza Ziyad's mother.  Mom said her daughter suffers extreme depression and bi-polar disorder, but will not take her meds because she does not want to acknowedge her mental health problems.  See link below:

http://www.wsbtv.com/video/16257156/index.html

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UPDATE 7-17-08-- Nafiza Ziyad’s Brother apologizes on You Tube video for his sister’s outburst on the MARTA train.  More than 800,000 people have viewed the video below wherein Nafiza’s brother issued a sincere apology to the elderly passenger his sister verbally assaulted during her bi-polar crisis, and he explained Nafiza’s condition to the public.  He asked the public to refrain from making fun of his sister and holding her accountable for her disability.  He requested prayers for Nafiza and his family.  Select the link below to see his video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khgfXRgDQSI&feature=related

Unfortunately, people actually found amusement in Nafiza’s bi-polar crisis.  Many physically disabled or disfigured people know what it is like to be the brunt of jokes.  This happens particularly to disabled or disfigured children, whose peers may not yet grasp the pain they inflict on their less fortunate classmates with physical impairments.  By the time most children grow up, however, they no longer find hilarity in another person’s limp or facial scar.  Regarding mental illness, it is apparently considered by a vast number of people to be socially acceptable to poke fun at mentally challenged persons like Nafiza. 

You Tube has been inundated with video submissions presenting re‑mixes of Nafiza’s bi‑polar episode.  The public has dubbed Nafiza “Solja Girl” and proceeded to re-enact her train crisis in one-woman plays; mini musicals with dancing train passengers; and cartoons, including Bart Simpson presentations.  Most of the reenactments have received more than 100,000 hits, illustrating the public’s willingness to be entertained by mental illness.  Below is one such video, a despicable, yet very popular, presentation wherein the producer has set Nafiza’s crisis to music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeSKhcpLkIM

 

When it comes to mental illness, not only would it appear to be socially acceptable to poke fun at the victims of the disorder, but it appears that violence toward the mentally ill is also accepted.  After MARTA officials were made aware of Nafiza’s bi-polar crisis on the train, she was tracked down and arrested for the public display of her bi-polar disorder.  But apparently, the man who physically assaulted her on the train was not at fault for his violent reaction to her illness.  Even some police officers participate in and excuse violence against people who are considered socially deviant or mentally ill.  See a videotape of police abuse against such a person on the link below:

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/memphis-police-taped-beating-transsexual-detainee-1-3-million-lawsuit-filed-mary-neal

The cruel public reaction to Nafiza’s bi-polar crisis should help mental health professionals to understand why many acute mental patients are prone to refuse treatment for their conditions.  Doing so is detrimental to most of these patients and result in eventual incarceration, but the stigma attached to mental illness acts as a deterrent to their acknowledging their own psychiatric needs.  This is why it is important to remove barriers to treatment. 

Fortunately, with the U.S.Senate voting overwhelmingly in favor of the Medicare Mental Health Parity Bill (H.R. 6331) on July 9, it would appear that some of the barriers to treatment are beginning to crumble.  Another exciting development is USA Today’s report that the number of accused felons found incompetent to stand trial has increased by 50% within the past year.  With judges refusing to hold mentally ill citizens criminally responsible for their actions, states are forced to find feasible alternatives to using jails and prisons to warehouse mentally ill citizens.  Additionally, some state legislatures have relaxed involuntary commitment standards somewhat, allowing easier access to psychiatric treatment for those who need it but will not willingly submit to same.  There is still much work to be done to decriminalize mental illness, remove barriers to treatment, and destroy the stigma attached to disorders of the mind.  However, much progress is being made by our judiciary and our elected officials. 

Remember when it was taboo to even discuss domestic violence issues or to admit to being a victim of child abuse or incest?  After many people came forward and began to publicly disclose these occurrences, much of the stigma attached thereto was removed, and victims of such acts do not now shy away from seeking help nearly as often as their counterparts did two decades ago.  Hopefully, the stigma attached to mental illness will similarly decline as more families emulate Nafiza Ziyad’s family.  They came forward and publicly declared their love and support for her, despite the fact that the families of severely mentally ill persons are usually stigmatized right along with their sick relatives.  More families need to come forward and insist on fair treatment for their loved ones.  Sometimes, change does not happen without sacrifice.

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Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  1 John 3:18

Pssssssssssss -- Do something!  Help the least of these, His brethren!  Across the country mental hospitals are closing.  Families have trouble getting help for loved ones who are in psychiatric need.  As hospitals close, more people (who should be inpatients or living in their communities under mandated treatment provisions) are instead joining this nation's 1.25 million imprisoned mentally ill citizens.  Show your concern for human rights by taking the survey and supporting AIMI. 

AIMI has not obtained non-profit status as yet.  Interested persons who are concerned about tax exemptions for donations, please consider supporting Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC);

Treatment Advocacy Center
A national nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to eliminating legal and clinical barriers to timely treatment of severe mental illnesses.  Link:   www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/

Many people are raising their voices to demand better treatment for our mentally ill citizens.  Open the petition link below and view the comments of those who agree that my mentally ill brother’s jail death deserves an investigation. The abuse that Michael Vick's dogs suffered was investigated and speedily prosecuted.  If you agree that a mentally ill citizen should have the same rights as American dogs, please add your support to the petition, also.

Petition to Investigate Mentally Ill Prisoner’s Death:  http://www.petitiononline.com/Neal/petition.html<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
Website:  http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com