Research Catalog
The insanity offense : how America's failure to treat the seriously mentally ill endangers its citizens
- Title
- The insanity offense : how America's failure to treat the seriously mentally ill endangers its citizens / E. Fuller Torrey.
- Author
- Torrey, E. Fuller (Edwin Fuller), 1937-
- Publication
- New York : W.W. Norton, [2008], ©2008.
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Request in advance | RC443 .T67 2008 | Off-site |
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Details
- Description
- xvi, 265 pages : illustrations; 25 cm
- Summary
- "The Insanity Offense describes in detail one of the great social disasters in recent American history. Over the past five decades, hundreds of thousands of patients with severe psychiatric disorders have been discharged from public mental hospitals. At the same time, changes in state commitment laws have made it impossible to treat nearly half of the discharged patients after they have left the hospital." "Here E. Fuller Torrey, the author of definitive guides to schizophrenia and manic depression, chronicles a disastrous swing in the balance of civil rights that has resulted in numerous violent episodes and left a vulnerable population of mentally ill people homeless and victimized. Interweaving in-depth accounts of three landmark cases in California, Wisconsin, and North Carolina with a history of legislation and changes in the mental health care system, Torrey gives shape to the magnitude of our failure."--BOOK JACKET.
- Subjects
- Commitment of Mentally Ill
- Mental health laws > United States
- Dangerously mentally ill > United States
- Mental health services > United States > Evaluation
- Mentally Ill Persons
- Dangerous Behavior
- Deinstitutionalization
- Mentally ill > Commitment and detention > United States
- Mentally ill > Deinstitutionalization > United States
- United States
- Mental Health Services > organization & administration
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-250) and index.
- Contents
- 1. Introduction: The Origins of a Disaster -- 2. Death by the Roadside -- 3. Thirteen Murders to Prevent an Earthquake -- 4. "The Odds Are Still in Society's Favor" -- 5. The Killing of Three Devils -- 6. The Sad Legacy of Ms. Lessard -- 7. God Does Not Take Medication -- 8. The Consequences of Unconstrained Civil Liberties: Homeless, Incarcerated, and Victimized -- 9. The Consequences of Unconstrained Civil Liberties: Violent and Homicidal -- 10. An Imperative for Change -- 11. Fixing the System -- 12. Coda: Death by the Roadside -- App. A. U.S. Studies of the Prevalence of Serious Violence by Psychiatric Patients Living in the Community -- App. B. Studies from Other Countries of Homicides Committed by Individuals with Psychotic Disorders.
- ISBN
- 9780393066586 (hardcover)
- 0393066584 (hardcover)
- LCCN
- 2008002697
- OCLC
- ocn181139537
- 181139537
- SCSB-5467136
- Owning Institutions
- Columbia University Libraries