E. Fuller Torrey's article
from the October 27, 2000 Orlando Sentinel seems relevant to the Virginia Tech massacre:
...» About 16 percent of state jail and prison inmates, roughly 16,000 people, are severely mentally ill.
» People with untreated severe mental illness are nearly three times more likely to be a victim of a violent crime.
» Ten to 15 times more suicides occur among those people with untreated, severe mental illness.
» More than 1,000 homicides in the United States are committed each year by people who have untreated mental illness.
These statistics can be attributed to the insidious nature of these illnesses.
Half of those suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder don't realize that they are sick and in need of treatment because of a biologically based symptom, anosognosia. These individuals don't realize that the hallucinations, delusions, paranoia and withdrawal they're experiencing are symptoms. Because they don't know that they are sick, they refuse treatment....
In other words, an individual must have a finger on the trigger of a gun before medical intervention will be permitted.
And this:
VIOLENT BEHAVIOR: ONE OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF FAILING TO TREAT SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESSES
SUMMARY: It is well known that the two major demographic predictors of violent behavior are male sex and younger age. It is also known that the two major clinical predictors of violent behavior are past history of violence and substance abuse (alcohol and/or drug). Recent studies have established that being severely mentally ill and not taking medication is a third major clinical predictor of violent behavior.
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1. Severely mentally ill individuals who ARE taking their medication are NOT more dangerous than the general population.
The three-site MacArthur Foundation Study of violence and mental illness reported that discharged psychiatric patients without substance abuse had approximately the same incidence of violent behavior as other individuals living in the same neighborhoods. These patients were being followed closely for a year and most were taking their medications. The reported results were weakened by the fact that the patients with the most violent past histories were excluded from the study and the fact that the Pittsburgh neighborhoods used as controls were "disproportionately impoverished and had higher violent crime rates through the city as a whole."
Steadman HJ, Mulvey EP, Monahan J, et. al. Violence by people discharged from acute psychiatric impatient facilities and by others in the same neighborhoods. Archives of General Psychiatry 55:393-401, 1998.
2. Severely mentally ill individuals who are NOT taking their medication ARE more dangerous than the general population.
Several early studies in the 1970s suggested this fact but were not well controlled. For example, a 6-year follow-up of 301 patients discharged between 1972 and 1975 from a California state hospital reported that their arrest rate for "violent crimes" was 10 times the rate for the general population.
