“These Clues Help Identify a Mentally Ill ‘Lone
Gunman’ Before Tragedy Strikes,” says the headline over a
Huffington Post essay
by Canadian psychologist Romeo Vitelli. Nine hundred words later,
Vitelli has arrived at the end of his post, and he still has not
revealed any of those clues. His bait and switch illustrates the
false promise that paying more attention to “warning signs” can
prevent mass shootings and other acts of violence by unhinged
malcontents.
“In one recent study comparing lone right-wing offenders
to right-wing offenders belonging to larger organizations,” Vitelli
writes, “the rate of mental illness was significantly higher among
the lone offenders.” I thought we were looking for factors that
distinguish people who commit acts of violence from people who
don’t, not factors that distinguish one kind of violent criminal
from another. Even assuming that “the rate of mental illness” is
higher among unafilliated terrorists than among the general
population (as seems likely), how useful is that
information?
“Among the diagnoses linked to potential violence are
schizophrenia and mood disorders (usually depression),” Vitelli
writes. But he concedes that “most people with these disorders
are not a violent risk.” Furthermore, “though some
lone offenders may have a previous history of minor offending, most
have no previous history of violence,” and they “act normally to
avoid suspicion until the offense happens.”
You’d think that last observation would be enough to
discourage Vitelli, but you’d be wrong. Although he cautions that
lone offenders “can vary widely in terms of what may have driven
them to violence,” he mentions divorced parents, “major life
change,” “acute stress,” a recent experience with “prejudice,” and
“recent financial problems” as other possible markers of homicidal
impulses. The problem with “clues” like these is that they identify
a very large population of suspects, almost none of whom will turn
out to be guilty.
The same is true of people who say weird or disturbing
things online. Yet Vitelli thinks the British government is onto
something with its Fixated Threat Assessment Centre, which aims to
protect members of the royal family and other public figures by
“monitoring social media for ‘manifestos’ being published or other
suggestions that some sort of violent incident is about to happen.”
Apparently if someone’s comments about Prince Charles are deemed
excessively vituperative, he can expect a visit from the
authorities. Not that posting a manifesto is necessarily a crime;
it may merely be a symptom of treatable mental illness.
“Along with identifying potential threats,” Vitelli
cheerily informs us, “FTAC also provides psychiatric services to
defuse the threat where possible.”
Imagine how many such services could be provided if FTAC
were transplanted to the U.S. and expanded to protect not just
celebrities but the whole population. In case you are wondering how
those services feel to people on the receiving end, consider the
experience of Brandon Raub, a Virginia man who was locked in a
psychiatric institution and
forcibly evaluated because of political opinions he expressed
on Facebook. Judging from his
lawsuit, Raub did not appreciate those services.
Vitelli laments that “police and security agencies are
usually not able to act until an actual criminal offense occurs.”
He does not seem to consider the possibility that there are sound
civil lbertarian reasons for that inability. But
don’t worry: “research…can help these agencies make more informed
decisions about how to intervene before it is too late.” After all,
“whether or not they are able to act in time can often spell the
difference between life and death.”
If Vitelli had provided even a single example of a mass
murder prevented by the sort of intervention he has in mind, his
argument would be stronger. But it still would not account for all
the innocent people caught in the psychiatric dragnet he is
proposing.
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