The insanity offense : how America's failure to treat the seriously mentally ill endangers its citizens /

Torrey (Treatment Advocacy Center and Stanley Medical Research Institute, MD) discusses the startling statistics regarding the deinstitutionalized mentally ill and their involvement in violent crimes. This work is studded with case studies of mentally ill patients whom the system failed, who then turned around and committed violent crimes. The case studies are fascinating, and the message is very clear: although begun with good intentions, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill has failed. Torrey outlines a series of steps to help fix various problems, starting with amending state laws regarding treatment of the mentally ill. The process outlined to help the mentally ill concludes with assessment and research, a vital aspect of ensuring that the steps taken are helping the problems. This work is vital for all working in the mental health field, or those whose lives are affected by someone with a mental illness. It is fascinating reading for anyone. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. J. A. Gibson Kaplan University

Research psychiatrist Torrey says that what began in the 1960s as an unlikely marriage between civil liberties advocates, who saw mandatory institutionalization of the mentally ill as a civil rights violation, and cost-conscious conservatives has resulted in a national catastrophe. That was when state governments decided they could save money by deinstitutionalizing mental patients, shuttering mental hospitals, and turning thousands of schizophrenics and manic-depressives out onto the streets. Ever since then, Torrey has been tallying instances in which severe mental illness has contributed to an escalating number of violent attacks, murders, and suicides and counting the number of severely mentally ill who are either homeless or incarcerated. Though he admits some of his numbers are estimates most public officials like to pretend the mentally ill are invisible and thus fail to keep an accounting they speak volumes about the dire need for public institutions equipped to help the severely mentally ill regain control over their destructive behaviors. His cry is loud and clear, but his solutions, alas, are necessarily complicated.--Chavez, Donna Copyright 2008 Booklist

The ill effects of not providing proper treatment for people with serious mental disorders has become all too apparent in recent years, writes research psychiatrist and treatment advocate Torrey (Surviving Manic-Depression). Released en masse from institutions beginning in the 1960s, the most severely ill are "most likely to become homeless, incarcerated, victimized, and/or violent." Torrey details how civil liberties suits have prevented such people from being involuntarily institutionalized, leaving them a danger both to themselves and to others. Confronting these issues head on, Torrey offers both the clinical and the anecdotal, citing several tragic examples: in the case of Cho Seung-Hui, the 2007 Virginia Tech killer, he faults both the university and stringent state laws regarding involuntary commitment for neglecting to treat a clearly very ill young man. This reform-minded book calls for a change in laws affecting how mentally ill people are treated, keeping close track of those with a history of violent behavior and creating a more comprehensive treatment approach. Chilling and well documented, this text has many no-nonsense solutions to protect the mentally ill themselves as well as society as a whole. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

According to research psychiatrist Torrey (Surviving Manic Depression), one percent of America's schizophrenic and other seriously mentally ill people is dangerous, a subgroup that numbers 40,000 in the United States. Here, he offers three explanations for this nationwide threat: deinstitutionalization, which allowed for the emptying of state hospitals without providing adequate community mental-health services, opposition to enforced treatment by antipsychiatry conservatives and liberal defenders of civil rights, and the failure of mental health advocates and professionals to address or even study the problem for fear of stigmatizing all psychiatric patients. Today, he writes, ten percent of this country's jail inmates and one-third of its homeless are seriously mentally ill; of the latter group, 25 percent are victims of violent crime annually. Torrey believes that court-enforced treatment, including involuntary commitment and monitored medication, would allow many to function adequately and make us all safer. His critical analysis, which effectively mixes dramatic narratives and chilling statistics, calls for changing policies that have proved inhumane, costly, and dangerous. An important, powerful, and thoroughly researched book; essential for most libraries.--E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.