© Mark Makela
As officer-involved shootings continue to dominate the headlines, a new report found that those with mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed in encounters with law enforcement than other civilians.
Conducted by the Treatment Advocacy Center, a non-profit committed to removing barriers to timely and effective treatment for severe mental illness (SMI),
the report estimated that 7.9 million Americans suffer from SMI that impairs their thinking. Worryingly, half of the population (about 4 million people) do not receive treatment for their condition, a result of various institutional and policy failures.
This untreated population is increasingly likely to find itself involved in deadly encounters with police.
Those with untreated illness comprise 25 percent of all fatal police encounters, TAC found. "At this rate, the risk of being killed during a police incident is 16 times greater for individuals with untreated mental illness than for other civilians approached or stopped by officers," the report stated.Additionally, those with untreated SMI make up 20 percent of all people in jail and prison, while accounting for about 10-20 percent of all law enforcement response calls in general.
"It should horrify but not surprise us that people with untreated mental illness are overrepresented in deadly encounters with law enforcement," said John Snook, TAC executive director and a co-author of the study, in a statement. "Individuals with untreated mental illness are vastly overrepresented in every corner of the criminal justice system. Until we reform the public policies that have abandoned them there, these tragic outcomes will continue."
The report acknowledged that hard statistics are difficult to come by since the government does not provide reliable data on officer-involved shootings. Instead, TAC used its own database as well as analysis by The
Washington Post and the
Guardian to generate its findings.
Comment: Regardless the low confidence vote in the US government and in Obama, the manipulative mechanics of fear suggestion has apparently (once again) moved the US population to a new level of susceptibility and, ultimately, to tighter control. Considering the 9/11 event and other false flags now occurring around the world, the reactions of the Americans are somewhat justified but should be mitigated by knowledge of the origins of perpetration, responsibility and agenda. Problem is...the "conspiracy" stigma keeps many from 1) the discovery of how today's world works, 2) the ability to formulate a truth-based reaction, and 3) the impetus to do something about it.