One Homeless Mentally Ill Man Kills Another in Miami, FL

Thanks for your comments, CJaye.  Taxpayers believe that reducing mental health services was done for budgetary reasons.  Actually, it costs considerably more to imprison mental patients than to hospitalize them.  Incarcerating the mentally ill does not excuse the state from giving mental health care.  In fact, each acutely mentally ill prisoner costs taxpayers over $150,000 per year to incarcerate - more money than some families of four live on in several years.  Inmates in the general prison population cost taxpayers about $50,000 per inmate, per year.

If Singleton gets a life sentence for Hill's murder, his imprisonment for the duration of his expected life span as sick person will cost over $11 MILLION.  That does not include the cost of his court-appointed lawyers and murder trial.

Your lawmakers probably invest heavily in private prisons.  Limiting mental health services and putting restraints on enforced treatment are tools that preserve sick Americans for prison, boosting profits for prison owners and investors.

Thanks for your comment, Aelusive.  During a recession, many people lose their homes.  Most move in with relatives or friends until they recouperate, and then they re-establish a home for themselves.  Even if they must live in a homeless shelter, it is not usually long-term.

On the other hand, most chonically homeless people are substance abusers and/or mentally ill, requiring long-term treatment, subsistence assistance, and in some cases, hospitalization.  None of those provisions is as costly as imprisonment. 

Providing for citizens' mental health is not only more cost-effective and humane than incarcerating them, it saves lives.

Hello, Rene.  Thanks for commenting.

Apparently, Singleton was hallucinating.  A witness to the murder said Hill was asleep on the park bench, so Hill might not have actually looked at Singleton at all. 

Hallucinations are quite common when the worse types of mental illness, like schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, go untreated.  My brother, who was a paranoid schizophrenic, used to blacken the eyes of people in photographs throughout our home, because he felt that the eyes were looking at him with evil intent.  He did this to pictures in magazines, photographs of family members, etc.  Larry even desecrated my oldest sister's graduation portrait by blackening her eyes so that her portrait would not "look at him wrong."  During some of Larry's worse psychotic episodes when he was unmedicated, my brother would demand that everyone clear the room so as to stop shooting darts out of their eyes at him.

It is interesting that Singleton, who was found incompetent to stand trial for two counts of battery, is now charged with two murders.  Is it his fault the hospital found him eligible for release and let him go?  People like Singleton used to live their lives in hospitals, saving them from prison and saving society from potential danger. 

When the mentally ill are in the grips of a psychotic episode, they sometimes react to stimuli they imagine, although no one is threatening them.  What do you think the baby was doing to be attacked and stabbed by a mentally ill man who came out of nowhere while her nanny had her out for a stroll in New York?

Baby in Stroller Attacked by Mentally Ill Man and Stabbed Repeatedly
http://www.syde-sho.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-12550.html

The horrific stabbing of 67-year-old Susan Barron by Mentally Ill Stranger
 http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/10/08/2007-10-08_stop_the_insanity_on_the_streets.html

I am sure you can think of many other instances where the mentally ill injured or killed people without provocation, just like Singleton did. Withholding treatment to the mentally ill is a problem that makes society more dangerous for us all, including the sick people, themselves.

Regarding race, Singleton is black, and Hill was a white man.  This does not bode well at all for Singleton in Florida, which is pretty big on the death penalty.  Hopefuly, Florida would not seek to execute this lifelong mental patient, but will place him in a secure mental hospital for the rest of his life.

Thanks for commenting, Ajlouny.  It is true that many mental institutions were substandard in the '50's and '60's and abuses happened.  But instead of closing them down, they should have been upgraded, and staffing and procedural problems should have been addressed. 

There has been no deinstitutionalization of acute mentally ill Americans.  They only traded hospital beds for jail cells.  When imprisoned, our mentally dysfunctional citizens suffer harsher, longer sentences than other inmates due to their lack of ability to follow orders.  When acute mental patients are left in the general prison population, many are targeted for abuse by other inmates.  Therefore, prisons often isolate mental patients.  Thousands are locked in solitary confinement chambers no larger than a small closet up to 23 hours per day, naked to prevent self-inflicted injury.  When mental patients in prisons suffer psychotic episodes, they may be Tasered, sprayed with chemicals, or strapped in often deadly restraint chairs.

We have had four decades of this so-called "deinstitutionalization" of the mentally ill, and it is not working, nor has it ever worked.  If it worked, there would not be 1.25 million mental patients in prison today, which has pushed our prison budget to around $185 BILLION PER YEAR.  I find it ironic that deinstitutionalizing mental patients was supposed to be a more humane option to long-term hospitalization of people like my schizophrenic brother, Larry Neal, and Sedrek Singleton.  I have a question for our mental health system and elected officials:

What is humane about families staying awake all night to ensure that sick relatives do not kill their family members or neighbors, because family members cannot get sick relatives admitted into a hospital until there is already a murder?
http://my.nowpublic.com/health/oregon-man-murders-his-sister

What is humane about police killing mental patients by Taser or live ammunition?
 http://my.nowpublic.com/culture/tasers-used-tame-best-buy-shopper-mary-neal

What is humane about relegating hundreds of thousands of sick people to homelessness, prison, and death? 

Everyone wants to be so cognizant of mental patients' civil rights and ask them, "Would you like to be treated for your mental illness, Sir?"  What lunacy!  Then, when the patient breaks the law, does anyone say, "Would you like to go to prison, sir?" 

Sometimes, I wonder if our elected officials and people over the nation's mental health organizations are not mostly prison profiteers!  What other reason is there for ignoring the obvious?  Acute mental patients, by nature of their disability, should not be held accountable for making their own treatment decisions.  We need to increase access to inpatient care for potentially violent patients BEFORE any tragedy, and enforce outpatient care for those who would go untreated if the decision is left to them.

Thanks for your comments, Paula.  You are correct.  We barely go a whole week anymore without some tragic news like this.  It is time to CHANGE.

Mary

Thank you for your encouraging comments, Christinia.  It is time for folks to realize that one in five Americans is said to have some form of mental illness.  Chances are that for every one person in five who has mental dysfunctions, there are at least four people who care about them.  That means that mental health care is an issue that impacts everyone! 

We are the majority - those who are mentally ill and the people who care about them - and it is high time we started acting like it.  Please contact your congressional representative today and demand that hospitalization replace incarceration for the mentally ill people in your state. http://www.house.gov/writerep

There are approximately 1.25 million mentally ill people being punished in prisons and jails for crimes they likely did not have the wherewithal to avoid committing.  Many of them did not even understand their Miranda Rights.  What kind of justice is that?  They should not be there, period.  However, most acute mental patients do not vote, and that is where we, their families and people who care about justice and human rights are needed.  Let us get over the stigma attached to this very common and highly treatable health condition and demand CHANGE in how mental illness is addressed in America.

COME OUT OF THE 14TH CENTURY, AMERICA.  STOP LOCKING MENTAL PATIENTS IN DUNGEONS AS CRIMINALS AND TREAT THEIR HEALTH CONDITIONS.  For those who are beyond being able to get well enough to be trusted in society, let us acknowledge that simple fact.  Some mental patients need permanent hospitalization - not early release like Singleton got.

Save innocent people - the sick and the well - from deranged mental patients.  That includes saving the patients, themselves.

Thanks for commenting, Harringtola.  Did you notice the links to other cases of acute mental patients attacking strangers I posted in a comment above this?  Have you had an opportunity to read the articles I post regularly about an increasing number of deaths of mental patients by police officers and by mean people who think it is fun to abuse or kill mentally dysfunctional people?  What about the abuses to mentally ill people once they are in America's prison system?  See them at this link:  http://my.nowpublic.com/search?page=1&fulltext=1&type=story&keys=mary+neal. 

No one is able to punish a person into a state of good mental health, so the extra money that taxpayers pay to imprison, rather than hospitalize, people with problems like Singleton has is completely wasted.  Nothing is saved at all.  In fact, if Singleton is incarcerated in a prison for the rest of his life, at around $150,000 per year, his incarceration will cost Florida taxpayers over $11 million!  Compare that to the cost to taxpayers if Singleton had been allowed to just stay in the hospital after he committed aggravated battery in 2007, at least until he was really ready to function in society. 

I believe after getting Singleton (and all the other Singletons out there) stabilized in a mental hospital, he should have been given a permanent living situation with ENFORCED TREATMENT and ENFORCED DEADLINES on how far he could wander and what time he must return to his care home, monitored by house arrest bracelets.  The man had already proved he was a danger to self and others and entered the criminal justice system.  So those folks who pretend to care so much about the civil rights of mental patients should just stand down.  I don't see much of their fervor for civil rights on behalf of the incarcerated mentally ill, who suffer greatly behind bars.  The cost of the measures I suggest would have been far less than $11 MILLION for life imprisonment.  More importantly, two men would still be alive.

Let me know what you think about my suggestions, please.

Mary