Friend of mine on a mental health team has told me that the local police have not been dealing with clients properly after violent acts. For example a client hit a woman completely randomly in a shopping mall, knocking her to the ground. The police picked him up, phoned a relative and then dropped him off with them. There was no arrest, no evaluation in a secure setting or anything. My mate reckoned that the police don't appreciate the risk to the public posed by some clients or maybe don't want to have to deal with clients and are over eager to make them someone else's responsibility. Bit of a worry for public safety though...

This just perpetuates the myth that mentally disordered people are necessarily danferous. I thought that it was up to the CPs to decide whether or not to prosecute. When policemen decide 'off their own bat' that there's no point they just perpetuate the myth.

GGGGrrrrrrr!

I agree with Stuart and just want to point out that people with mental health difficulties are MUCH more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. (If I spelt that right).  

sorry about the double post - I'm having problems editing but I'd say binge drinking is a FAR higher concern for public safety  

I take your points but this was the mental health team themselves saying this, and they have their clients' interests at heart. When someone assaults someone in the street it is a serious matter. The teams can provide help at the police station if necessary. It's no good the police washing their hands of the matter because it is convenient... they need to know who to contact on the teams, and the teams need to see the client as soon as possible after the incident. It's all very well taking a lofty stance with the 'people with m.h problems are more likely to be victims of violence than violent themselves' line but a completely innocent person was knocked to the ground and repeatedly punched in this case. You could, by the way, use the same line for binge drinkers... 'people who binge drink are more likely to be the victims of violence than commit violent acts', that sort of rings true too because that's the nature of violence... there are always more victims than perpetrators. I have also heard that GPs often fail to appreciate which team to refer cases to. Too often they refer people with drug and alcohol issues to mental health services ignoring the substance teams.

In reference to the bit about binge drinkers above - it's not the same argument because people choose to binge drink but they don't choose to experience mental health problems.  If binge drinkers (and I am one) experience violence because they are a binge drinker then they just not binge drink anymore.

Ruby, are you saying that if you are drunk, tipsy, whatever, you are somehow more deserving of violence against you? I'm actually quite astonished that people here are not shocked that you can assault people in the street at random and not be arrested or confined for a period while professionals treat you. And as I mentioned before, it was a mental health team member who raised this issue.

I wasn't disagreeing with your original post, I was just diagreeing with the the example you gave of violence towards people because they are binge drinkers and violence towards people who have mental health problems.  I didn't see it as being similar at all.

Besides - violence towards another person is never acceptable.

Lionel, it's not about a 'lofty stance' - it's just about realities.

What prompts a person to be violent is the arrogant belief that they have the right to hurt others. That's to do with cultural or perhaps sub-cultural issues rather than to do with mental disorder.

By treating people with mental health problems differently from the way we treat others we create the impression that violence is a necessary part of mental disorder when that just isn't true. Mental disorders tend not to take away people's abiity to distinguish between right and wrong. Nor do they necessarily result in hostility.

There's nothing lofty about that - it's simply annoying when service-users are stigmatised en-masse because of these misperceptions.

Cheers,

Stuart

I totally agree with the post above.  Yesterday I tried to write a post with a similar argument but I couuldn't seem to phrase it right.

I am a social worker in a CMHT and too often people with mental illnesses are let off for public order offences and aggressive behaviour because the police find out they are known to a mental health team, when actually all this does is perpetuates their belief that they are above the law and are ok to behave in this way.

 People are extremely rarely violent because of a mental illness, usually they are just violent because they are a violent person.

I think we are now all in agreement! The police should play a more responsible part in the process. Thanks Stuart and Ruby... very interesting points about people 'rarely violent because of a mental illness'. I rather imagine some practitioners might disagree with that. But I would agree: some behaviour is totally unacceptable whatever the condition of the client. I wonder how much training the police recieve in dealing with people with mental health problems. If what I'm hearing is widespread then they need a lot more.

lionel:

I think we are now all in agreement! Thanks Stuart and Ruby... very interesting points about people 'rarely violent because of a mental illness'. I rather imagine some practitioners might disagree with that..

There is a difference between saying people are violent because of mental disorder and saying that a number of people with mental disorders might be violent.

I agree that some mentally disordered people are violent but this is also true of the general population. It's not mental disorder that causes hostility - it's other social issues that are also prevalent in other sections of society.

Many people who wear glasses are violent but that doesn't mean that glasses wearers are necessarily violent - nor does it mean that wearing glasses is a reason to avoid legal processes.

I believe in recovery from mental disorders, including 'serious and enduring' disorders like schizophrenia. That is achieved essentially by preparing and helping people to exist and function within mainstream society. A necessary part of this is to do with conforming to the laws of society. We do mentally ill people few favours by maintaining their illness with 'special status' around criminal justice. That's not mainstream society and it not only stigmatizes them it also mitigates against self control and resopnsibility.

If a person is behaving violently because of mental disorder (it does happen sometimes, after all) then there's a legal mechanism to deal with that too via the Mental Health Act but the process still tends to begin in court, doesn't it? Decisions about prosecution and public interest should be made by the CPS, not by other individuals whatever their motivation or professional bias.

i feel that no matter what reasons there is for violence that the person commiting the offence should be dealt with.  If in this case it was a mental health client then surely there should be something in place to protect the person safely and to hold them until they can be properly assessed.  The police i feel are not equipt to deal with these issues in some of our areas......

Indeed.

Society has a right to protect itself and if people are violent toward others we can and should take action to prevent further aggression. This is not achieved by making an assumption that certain groups of people (any group of people) has carte blanche to go around smacking people without consequence.

I do think though that the present system for dealing with offenders (mentally disordered or otherwise) is approrpiate if it's used - and that does involve the police to begin with - they're the approrpiately trained and equipped people to arrest offenders after all.