Mental Health is in Dark Ages Illegal Immigrants
By MARGARET EDDS
RICHMOND – Here’s one image of mental health care in Virginia institutions, circa late 20th century.
Gloria Huntley, a 31-year-old borderline schizophrenic, in and out of hospitals from the time she was 13, died strapped by the arms and legs to a hospital bed at Central State Hospital on June 29, 1996.
Even though her psychiatrist had warned of the danger, Gloria lay spread-eagled in restraints for 300 hours in the last month of her life, including two stretches of 41/2 days each.
Here’s an image of mental health care in Virginia’s more community-driven system, circa early 21st century.
"My son’s bipolar, he’s off his meds, he has a history of psychotic behavior. You’ve got to do something! He’s sick! Help him please!" Pete Earley, author of the recently published book "Crazy," records a nightmarish attempt to get his mentally ill son admitted to a Northern Virginia hospital.
"Your son is an adult," the physician replies, "and while he is clearly acting odd, he has a right under the law to refuse treatment."
It is only a matter of time until that son breaks into someone’s home and faces two felony arrest warrants.
What unites an era of institutions for the mentally ill and an era of deinstitutionalization, in which jails and prisons often wind up as default holding pens? The awareness that mental illness can be hell, no matter when or where.
Think we’ve progressed far from the era when Dorothea Dix stormed 19th-century America, exposing the abominable treatment of the mentally ill in jails and prisons? Read Earley’s account of the psychiatric unit at the Miami-Dade County jail and you’ll doubt it.
Naked prisoners huddled in freezing cells eating food off the floor, then and now.
The April 16 killing of 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech by a deranged student-gunman is bringing renewed attention to the status and treatment of mentally ill Virginians.
* What does it take to force treatment?
* What should that treatment entail?
* What is the correct balance between honoring the rights of the individual and protecting that individual and society from the harm he might do?
At the first meeting of the blue-ribbon panel appointed by Gov. Tim Kaine to address the Tech shootings, mental illness bubbled to the fore. Kaine confirmed that sense in an impromptu press conference last week.
"Fairly quickly, I felt the mental health issues might come to predominate," he said.
What that panel can most likely provide is a case study in the treatment, or lack thereof, of one young man, Seung-Hui Cho, whose brooding silence apparently intensified during his college years. A more intensive probe of issues will come with a 2008 report from the Commission on Mental Health Law Reform, led by Chief Justice Leroy R. Hassell Sr.
When it was launched last year, that study spawned an unnecessary challenge from lawmakers – most prominently Virginia Beach Sen. Ken Stolle – who thought Hassell was invading their turf. Now, everyone should just be glad the work is under way and that the final report will carry the cachet of some of Virginia’s premier minds.
Yes, as Stolle argued, the legislature has conducted study after study of mental illness in Virginia, and the missing ingredient invariably winds up being money.
But timing is everything in politics. No matter how many lofty studies are collecting dust on library shelves, the intersection of the Virginia Tech shootings and the Hassell study means this one will have an audience far beyond the rest.
Moreover, it is starting from the right point – the grim reality that across the commonwealth, as nationally, prisons and local jails are substituting for the mental health hospital beds that no longer exist.
By one reading, America has simply come full circle. In the Colonial era, families cared for their mentally ill as best they could, and jails picked up the slack. Spurred by horror stories, state asylums were born. Generations later, amid new horror stories, asylums began to shut down.
Now we are back to often inadequate family and community-based care, with jails picking up the slack – and more horror stories.
That’s a gross oversimplification, of course. Modern medicines, well-run group homes, Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams and other innovations all allow scores of mentally ill individuals to live more normal, integrated lives than ever before.
Gloria Huntley and Pete Earley’s son present only two faces of care, not the full range.
Still, we deceive ourselves – and badly so – if we continue to shut down hospital wards while tolerating a shortage of community options, or if we dismiss the agony of families forced to watch their loved ones disintegrate into criminals before help arrives.
Anyone reviewing the long history of mental illness in America knows reform never spells panacea. But current conditions are not the best we can do. Freedom that ends in a jail cell is not preferable to custody in a hospital ward.
We can do better, and we must.
* Margaret Edds is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. E- mail her at margaret.edds@ pilotonline.com. virginia politics your opinions Embarrassing Virginia challenges NY to a duel
XCurmudgeon.blogspot.com
After New York brought legal proceedings against some of the dealers, what did Virginia do? Did it say, "oh my, we ought to be the ones enforcing these guns laws, and shame on you dealers"? Of course not.
Instead, the dealers went to the NRA and other gun groups and got the ever cowardly Virginia legislature to pass a law saying that another state cannot conduct a sting operation in Va. without a Virginia or federal law enforcement official present.
To its credit, New York gave Virginia the figurative finger and said "fugheddaboutit." New York shouldn’t be intimidated. The law – which sadly a number of Democrats in Va. also voted for, and even more sadly, Gov. Kaine signed – is probably unconstitutional. We’d like to see NY press the issue and force a court confrontation, in which we think
Virginia ignoring threat of ‘climate snap’
Raising Kaine.com
I went to the Arlington Central Library on Tuesday night to hear Mike Tidwell speak. He’s the director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. Mike has also written two books on the impact of climate change, the most recent being, "The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America’s Coastal Cities."
We logically wired humans like to think everything happens gradually, through cause and effect. But Mother Nature doesn’t always work that way. Mike warned global warming may not be as smooth as we’d like to think, using a term I’d never heard before – climate snap.
Mike focused on climate change globally, but he provided several examples of our state’s stunning inaction. One example: Where does Virginia rank among the 50 states in spending on energy efficiency and conservation programs?
Virginia ranks dead last in state spending … Virginians use twice as much energy per capita as Californians. blogs Drop the incentives
Can we please stop this stupid debate about deporting illegals? It is ridiculous to consider the logistics of deporting as many as 12 million illegals.
What we need to do is take away the reasons they come: Free medical, free education, jobs and housing. Legislators could do this in one day.
Informed Americans know that illegals cost much more than they contribute. The Republicans don’t want the problem solved because the business community enjoys cheap labor. The Democrats don’t want the problem solved because they dream of millions of "amnesty votes."
Hundreds of communities across the nation are being sued by numerous organizations for doing the job the national government has refused to do. Knowingly hire illegals? Fine or jail. Knowingly rent to illegals? Fine or jail. Entitlements? None!
The word will get out. It’s not complicated.
Of course Americans won’t take the jobs that illegals take. Employers should try paying what the job is worth. Yes, many prices would go up, but not having to support 12 million illegals on entitlements would more than offset such increases. The cost of your new roof would go up. The cost of your lawn service would go up. Your motel bill would go up. The cost of your chicken breasts would go up. But your FICA would not.
This is not about racism and ethnophobia. It is about economics, culture and values. Illegals are, for the most part, hard-working, good people. The solution is not complicated. It just takes guts.
David H. Sieg
Virginia Beach
Let’s work together
The car accident that killed the two beautiful girls in Virginia Beach sparked a flame against a group of people who are also victims. These people are victims of our government and of their respective governments.
No one wants illegal anything. Most people just want to be able to live and raise their families – regardless of where they come from.
We are very fortunate to be living in a city that perhaps we take for granted regarding safety. This safety is due to a well-thought- out plan by Beach Police Chief Jake Jacocks.
This issue with the illegals (I say the undocumented) has been a part of life since before 1924, when the U.S. border was created by our government. Most are hard-working and have been living side by side with us in our community, not bothering anyone, just trying to survive. Then 9/11 occurred, and because some men from the Middle East were undocumented, scrutiny turned to us all. Some of these misguided men were students, or guests, who had stayed over their allotted time.
But most undocumented people in the U.S. are law-abiding people who just need to work. They love their children, and would rather be in their own countries if they could make a living there. Most are not asking for any special treatment; they just want to work.
I propose that we hold a forum where people on opposite sides agree to disagree and act civil toward one another. I am not thinking that I will change your mind nor you mine, but perhaps we can come away with a better understanding. Maybe The Virginian- Pilot or its TV partner WVEC, Channel 13, can help us organize this forum.
Alicia Fernandez-Bobulinski
Hispanic outreach director
Making A Difference Foundation
Virginia Beach
The key word: illegal
Re "Police have a new question: Are you here legally?" (front page, May 2):
It is about time that something is going to be done about the illegal immigration in this city. Is it the complete answer? Of course not, but it is a start.
We cannot enter any other country and remain there without proper documentation, so why should we sit idly by and let this happen in our own country? Why should we let others come here to live and not have to obey the same laws that we have to?
The key word here is "illegal." If Ms. Fernandez-Bobulinski thinks some proverbial box is going to be opened, she is sadly mistaken. Upholding the law is what our local police are here for, especially immigration that is illegal.
Brian Fortner
Chesapeake
Useless argument
Roger Chesley’s column "Drunken driving, not immigration, is the issue" (op-ed, May 5) is one more example of useless arguing over which issue is more important regarding the illegal alien accused of killing Tessa Tranchant and Alison Kunhardt.
If he hadn’t come to the U.S. illegally, these girls would still be alive. If he hadn’t gotten behind the wheel drunk, they would still be alive. Neither issue is more significant than the other in this case.
Josh Kellogg
Virginia Beach
Progressive fantasies
Mr. Chesley, how many Americans have to die before you and the rest of the media stop advocating sanctuary? This policy maybe does defend some good people, but it also protects others who wish us dead.
Does your compassion extend to us? Or our we just fodder for your progressive fantasies?
Jay McMindes
Boise, Idaho
A publicity stunt
I’m curious as to who got the kudos for that "routine" traffic stop on I-264 that ended up with 14 illegals being picked up (Hampton Roads, May 8).
I don’t believe this was random. This was something Virginia Beach needed so it can say: "Look! We are cracking down on them!" What a coincidence this happened now. Where did the money come from to pay this publicity stunt?
Pam Mostoller
Virginia Beach
Loophole babies
Let there be no doubt that every person who enters this country illegally, no matter his or her age, is a criminal.
One of the most-effective weapons these illegal criminals use is our own U.S. Supreme Court and its liberal interpretation of the Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution is there a mention of birthright citizenship.
The 14th Amendment addressed the citizenship of the Freedmen, but subsequent rulings by the Supreme Court gave birthright citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, including those who were not "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Herein lies a loophole that illegal immigrants are exploiting to force their entry into this country.
How do they do this? They enter the country illegally and have children who become instant citizens (anchor babies). In 2004, it is estimated that between 287,000 and 363,000 babies were born to illegal immigrants.
The government is reluctant to deport the illegal mother and the U.S. citizen baby because of lawsuits brought on by the ACLU and the criminals they represent. This new child and the mother are instantly covered by a host of government programs, at taxpayer expense.
Moreover, the mother starts the clock to her own citizenship and, once earned, she can petition for relatives to enter the country. All of this bypasses our immigration laws and enables these criminals to cut in line ahead of those who have followed procedures properly.
It is time to fix this broken system. Immigration reform needs to include a change to the 14th Amendment to award birth citizenship only to children whose parents are legally in this country. All others should be citizens of their parents’ country. Then the illegal immigrants will have no trump cards to hold and deportation should be immediate.
Steven Hunnicutt
Virginia Beach