February 17, 2025
That thorny issue of mental illness and violence
As he told this newspaper about the deadly threat posed by a mentally ill man to staff and students of Retirement Primary School in north-western St Elizabeth, chairman of the school board Mr Herman Samuels also lamented a near-three-year lag in building a security fence for the school.
Mr Samuels said last week that, based on communication with the Ministry of Education, he was under the impression the fencing would’ve already been in place.
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Tardiness in getting that perimeter fencing done, no doubt, reflects the bureaucratic entanglement in which institutions of governance often find themselves.
It’s a challenge that must be frontally faced by whichever political party takes the reins of power in parliamentary elections now bearing down.
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Another serious challenge that shouldn’t be dodged any further is that of the mentally ill among us.
Incredibly, in the case of the attack on Retirement Primary by a machete-wielding man last Tuesday, leaving an ancillary worker injured, it was said to be the sixth such in recent years at the same school, involving the same individual.
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In 2022 the man, said to be of “unsound mind”, inflicted serious wounds to a former principal of the school.
Just days before the most recent attack at Retirement Primary, there was a case of murder, linked to mental illness, a few miles away at Thornton, northern St Elizabeth.
A 20-year-old woman was killed — allegedly by her 22-year-old brother said to be of unsound mind. The latter has been charged with murder.
Regarding the latest case at Retirement Primary, we were assured by St Elizabeth’s police chief, Superintendent Coleridge Minto, at last Thursday’s monthly meeting of the municipal corporation that the attacker was in custody on that day, and was to be treated by mental health personnel.
Bizarrely, if reports from Retirement are to be believed, the attacker was initially held by residents and turned over to the police last Tuesday. Reports from the community said the police took the man to hospital then left him there. He subsequently returned to the community, triggering fear and anxiety.
There has long been considerable confusion in the public domain, and probably among police personnel themselves, about what they are empowered to do when treating with the mentally ill.
So that word from medical officer for St Elizabeth Dr Tonia Dawkins-Beharie that a special subcommittee being set up to focus on mental health at the local level will address “training” for police personnel is very timely.
Also, we are intrigued by Dr Dawkins-Beharie’s suggestion that the “possibility” of an “interim” facility for the mentally ill would be explored by the subcommittee.
She was careful to explain to this newspaper that the latter idea was “purely exploratory”. If it were to be approved by the authorities, such a facility would serve as a “transition phase” for those who “[can’t] be managed in the hospital or in the community…”
Exploratory though it is, the thought is not new. Jamaicans have long wondered why those among the mentally ill with a history of, and proven propensity towards violence, are no longer routinely institutionalised.
Obviously, any such initiative would have implications not just for St Elizabeth, but islandwide.
Like all concerned Jamaicans, we wait.
