My father used to say that all politicians are corrupt. Every single one of ‘em. When I was younger, and considered myself wiser than him, I disagreed. Now I find myself coming around to his way of thinking, with a small modification: I believe that politicians are unavoidably compelled to harm their constituents because their motivations and incentives are opposed to ours. They are not necessarily bad people, but they are self-interested.
Our elected officials have no meaningful incentive to prevent another murder committed by someone with severe mental illness. It’s not that they want these crimes to continue – our representatives are still human, I think – but they are compelled to do things that will keep them in office. Sadly, the behaviors that maintain their power are sometimes very different from the behaviors that would solve problems.
Revamping our mental health system would be the single most effective thing our representatives could do to prevent another Aurora or Newtown. Since our society began deinstitutionalizing the seriously mentally in the 1960s (partly under the horribly misguided notion that a new class of medication would cheaply solve the problem) prisons have become the de-facto mental health institution for the treatment of violent mental illness.
Unavoidably, these patients are only forced into treatment after the their lives have fallen apart and they have harmed innocent people. That is assuming they survive long enough to be incarcerated. Having worked in that environment, I can assure you that successful long-term treatment is low on the list of a prison administration’s priorities. Who can fault them? That’s not the purpose of prisons.
Somewhere out there, right now, the next mass murderer is stewing over his violent video game, possibly having the occasional, unproductive brush with the community mental health system while his teachers or coworkers watch helplessly as he descends. What are our representatives doing to help that person? They are arguing about the Second Amendment like a fools arguing over the deck chairs on the Titanic.
But they are not fools. They engage in this diversion to gain the attention of their constituents. Whether pro or con, they know where their votes come from, and they align themselves accordingly. They have no reason to discuss a difficult topic like mental-healthcare reform. The topic is expensive, unglamorous, and unpredictably controversial.
A successful politician will always ask the pragmatic question: how might my constituency respond if I took a position on this a topic? Better to keep the debate focused on something safe and predictable, like guns. Political pragmatism is their instinct, and it hurts the very people who elect them.
That instinct hurt us profoundly when the Aurora shooter pulled his trigger. By all reports, his psychiatrist did all she could for him. It was the system that failed us. She should have had the ability to say to her patient, “You need help, and I’m sorry but we need to take your freedom until you are well enough to function without threatening yourself or others.”
That option was once available, but we threw it away because it seemed inhumane and expensive. That was a mistake. It should have existed for the Aurora shooter, the Newtown shooter, and the young man who shot a classmate last week in California. All of them were visibly troubled.
Our country needs serious mental-healthcare reform, but why on earth would our representatives open that can of worms? There’s nothing in it for them. It’s all downside. It would involve research, and budgetary discussions, and – worst of all – unpredictable voter responses.
So instead, our representatives will keep on shouting about banana clips and background checks because that’s where they are most comfortable. It doesn’t serve us, but it serves them. I was foolish to have doubted my father.
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Dr. Smith is a psychologist in Denver, Colorado and the author of The User’s Guide to the Human Mind: Why Our Brains Make Us Unhappy, Anxious, and Neurotic and What We Can Do about It. Be sure to follow Shawn on Facebook for his latest rants and ramblings.