(Aug. 15, 2012) It’s ironic that Emily Bazelon poses the question “How Do We Stop the Next Aurora” in her recent article for Slate Magazine, where she is a senior editor.
The Bazelon Center for Mental Health is thusly named in honor of her grandfather and is a leading proponent of limiting involuntary treatment for people suffering from severe mental illness. The Bazelon Center “envisions an America where people who have mental illnesses or developmental disabilities exercise their own life choices and have access to the resources that enable them to participate fully in their communities.”
While this makes sense for people who are well enough to make those choices, ignoring the obvious segment of people with severe and persistent mental illness who lack insight to make those decisions (roughly 50% of people with schizophrenia) is short-sighted. As Emily Bazelon notes, “we sweep [serious mental illness] under the rug at our own peril.”
The recent Aurora mass killing presents a number of complicated issues without a lot of information for the public to determine whether better laws – or better implementation of existing laws – could have prevented the tragedy. So, in answer to Emily Bazelon’s question about stopping the next Aurora, here are a few measures that could help:
- Improve state civil commitment laws so they are based on need for treatment rather than danger
- Promote understanding and implementation of those laws
- Recognize within the mental health community the link between untreated mental illness and violence
- Increase the number of public psychiatric beds
- Improve community mental health services
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