Mad men and murder
The names given to the mentally challenged that roam our streets have changed over time, depending on the politics and political correctness of the era.
They have gone from being called mad men to being called mentally challenged. The term “mad house” has been changed to “sanatoriums” then to “insane asylums” to, eventually, “centres for the mentally disabled”.
Different names, same crisis, same neglect, same danger to the public.
People with mental disabilities were a risk to helpless citizens when they were called mad men. They still are dangerous today.
People with mental disabilities were neglected by their families and the State. They still are neglected today. Changing a label does not change outcomes.
The recent killing of policeman, Detective Constable Paul Gordon in Linstead, St Catherine, by an insane, apparently homeless man, with the use of a rock, is one of a string of incidents involving insane people.
There was the disarming and injuring of a police officer in Half-Way-Tree, St Andrew, and members of the public running for their lives as he randomly shot at ghosts or whatever imaginary villain he was in combat with.
There was also the killing of a woman by an insane man also in Half-Way-Tree.
There was the disarming of a police officer of his M16 rifle in Olympic Gardens, which was followed by a bus assault and the death of the insane man.
The list is long and the fix is simply not happening.
You see, the whole system has no end game. Insane people, when they commit crimes, are held at the pleasure of the State until they are well enough to be tried.
However, they do not really get the required treatment when they are incarcerated so, technically, they will never have a trial.
This is why you have cases of people being in custody for extended periods, even decades, without ever facing a trial.
The eventual outcome is that it becomes discovered that someone has been in custody for a decade or two. The lawyers bring it to court, the press takes up the matter and the screaming starts about the penal process and the injustice. But nobody remembers that someone was killed.
That is the most important part of the equation, not the injustice meted out to the deranged killer. That, too, is important, but that comes third.
The second most important consideration is the likelihood of this insane, mad, or mentally disabled man killing again. Forget the label, focus on the effect.
So let us tear apart the process and see if we can piece it back together.
The offender is insane. He should not go to a normal prison. It is not fair to the penal employees, the other prisoners, or the mentally disturbed killer. He is sick, he needs treatment.
I have tried to explain to people that when a person is suffering from mental illness he often is not seeing the same reality we are. In his mind, he can be in another time and in another place facing God knows what imaginary threat.
It is not that he is being difficult or wicked. He honestly can do no better. Why? Because he is insane!
So why is it that we do not have a facility for the criminally insane? Everybody says Bellevue Hospital, but it is not there for that. It is not equipped. However, could it be equipped for such a purpose? I really do not see why it could not be done.
I have written on this issue in this same column before. This is a micro problem. It is isolated to dangerous men with mental conditions. They could not have that many.
Firstly, we need to build a wing at Bellevue for high-risk, mentally challenged people and the criminally insane. We need to staff it adequately.
Secondly, we need the mental health professionals to conduct research on mentally ill people roaming our streets and determine who is at risk to the public.
Thirdly, we need properly trained people to transfer them to this wing.
They must receive treatment whilst there. It is not warehousing. If and when they are not considered a risk to the public they can have supervised release.
Things have changed in the treatment of the mentally challenged. Nowadays it is more driven in the direction of family care, rather than institutional care. This is good, if it works and there is no apparent risk to the public.
I am not talking about someone urinating in your garden. I am talking about someone smashing in your skull with a rock. This is a serious issue. It should not have been allowed to happen once. It has happened multiple times now.
The irony is that, if the insane man had been arrested and placed in custody for this recent murder, he would go years without a trial date and then be presented in court as another person who has got his rights subjugated and needs to be released. All this with no mention of the fact that Constable Gordon has been murdered and taken away from his family.
I know Jamaica’s problems are many. I know the economy, the crime, the debt and the social infrastructure are all in peril. I get it. But this is fixable. This was fixable before, too. I doubt if it will be fixed and my words will doubtless fall on deaf ears.
However, if that mentally challenged murderer had killed a government minister, a lawyer or an owner of a massive corporate entity, the rules and the policies would change at the speed of a bat leaving hell.
Constable Gordon’s death needs to stand for something. If nothing changes then his death will be as senseless as it feels now.
The removal of insane people from the streets of Jamaica needs to begin now.
If this happens again with no efforts to provide treatment for the mentally ill on our streets, then the blood of the next victim will be on the hands of the Government.
Feedback: drjasonamckay@gmail.com