Real story behind Columbine

Not without history Oli and he has to be able to provide a case in court. The people the article refers to are people who are already under treatement, they don't go scouring the streets or schools for them.

Yes you need a failed suicide attempt or you need for the patient to say they are feeling suicidal.

Oli:But the same principles aren't being applied - that's the problem.
Those guys were identified and reported as fitting the pattern: surely sufficient grounds for at least further investigation.
And if confirmed then they should have been incarcerated as a "potential danger to themselves or others".

Fitting patterns is not a psychiatric assessment. You can probably say many people are depressed but you cannot demand treatment or incarcerate them as potentials based on that. Also there needs to be a reason to place someone under a psychiatric assessment, just being bad kid at school doesn't warrant it. How do you justify further investigation without consent of family or student?

The guidelines of assessment like those for schizophrenia are quite broad. They encompass a lot of features that many people display, this is why assessing someone takes a great deal of observation over time. What you seem to suggest is zero in on everyone or anyone who displays a few of those features and its not enough. You know someone might talk to the little friend of theirs who sits on their shoulder, that is still not enough to commit them based on the idea that they are a schizophrenic.

 

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Sniffy provided a fairly lengthy list of indicators...
No need to scour the streets (in this particular case).

Correct: but when the reports are as strong as they were surely it should have made some one think "Oh! Maybe we should take a look".

From post #108 (ignoring all the other mentioned indicators in other posts).

Yup, that fits the criteria for "just a bad kid at school".
Plus the reports from fellow students and teachers.
But, "Hey, they're teenagers. Just letting off steam y'know".

 

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A lengthy list of indicators is not a diagnoses. Only an acting psychiatrist can make a diagnoses.

Read that list again Oli. Only ACTUAL violence warrants intervention. Not writing violently disturbed storie or making disturbed videos? Do you want half of hollywood to be incarcerated too? Yes oli sometimes this is an indication of letting off steam! The law cannot take away someones freedom based on what you think they may do. These boys were not under treatment for anything and they had no arrests.

Read this: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/356465_dangerousmain26.html

And read this http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/04/n...f-mentally-ill.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Note this only covers those who have already had contact with either the mental health or criminal justice system. Not the weird neighbor you suspect of being a serial killer because he digs his garden at night.

Not the law can only do this:

"A court order can be sought only for mentally ill adults who meet several requirements intended to protect their rights, like having a history of not complying with their treatment or being hospitalized twice within 36 months or committing a violent act within four years. Lawmakers said they expected to adopt the measure in the next few days before the Legislature wraps up the 1999 legislative session."

Those Columbine killers behaviour is only being assessed now after the fact, they were never actually diagnosed as such. And since psychopaths tend to keep themselves together under observation it is very unlikely that they would have come up with anything save a rambunctious teenager going through the normal yet difficult throes of growing up.

 

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Yup.

 

Yup what? What is that? Did you read the articles? Or even my thread?

If you had dragged those kids into a school counselors office you wouldn't get anything out of them and a school counselor isn't in the position to make a diagnoses. So how do you plan on getting someone into the system when they do not seek out help? When their family hasn't noticed anything disturbing to seek it out on their behalf? A school prinicple can ask that they seek mental health treatment but psychopaths don't respond to that kind of treatment. So where do you go with it? Suggestions.

 

I wasn't talking about school counsellors (whatever they are): I'm talking about the alarm being raised and ignored: despite sufficient evidence for a professional to be called in.
And no-one's ever had a psychiatric evaluation made against their own wishes?
A professional couldn't actually check their history?

And sorry: yes, the second article looks like someone is doing something at last.

 

Ok. Who decides that a specialist should be brought in? Sometimes you have to read a post:

"So how do you plan on getting someone into the system when they do not seek out help? When their family hasn't noticed anything disturbing to seek it out on their behalf? A school prinicple can ask that they seek mental health treatment but psychopaths don't respond to that kind of treatment."

A psychiatrist cannot treat or even properly assess a person who is resistent. He would have found a crabby student reluctant to answer questions or who simply doesn't give any informantion. Then what? How is a medical professional to check a history when there is nothing to check save heresay? They didn't do anything to end up in care and their parents never placed them in care so how is this to be done? Again it can only be done with those who are already in the system, not joe blow student or the guy down the street doing their weird thing.

The only people who are evaluated are those who end up in the mental health or criminal justice system. You cannot call the police or a mental institution and say 'I'm concerned for so and so please come and assess him'. Anyway it wouldn't work, they're not alcoholics going through an intervention they are psychopaths who don't break down and are very good at masking in the face of interference.

Oli: And sorry: yes, the second article looks like someone is doing something at last.

Well actually no. The NY law would not cover these guys. It covers the guidlines I listed in the earlier post. Even if they had them for 72 hours they would not have been able to say they were going to commit a crime unless they said they were going to commit a crime.

 

The law says:

"A court order can be sought only for mentally ill adults who meet several requirements intended to protect their rights, like having a history of not complying with their treatment or being hospitalized twice within 36 months or committing a violent act within four years. Lawmakers said they expected to adopt the measure in the next few days before the Legislature wraps up the 1999 legislative session."

These boys were not on meds and had never been in the mental health system.

 

Who does in any circumstance?
At some point there has to be someone to say "this is worthy of consideration".
Or are teachers adn fellow students not worth listening to?

They can't be "forcibly" sent to a psychiatrist/ psychologist?
Or someone called in to look at existing evidence?

Prior history?
Existing reports?

Oh, my bad.
You can in the UK, to my knowledge.
Someone can be reported and put into the system then assessed and sectioned against their personal desires.

 

Well usually its the family or treating doctor. In this case there was no doctor and the family were unaware. Teachers and students cannot get someone committed. What would you suggest be done with them? Life in prison or institution when they haven't done anything? Even if you hold its for a short time and eventually they have to be released. And then what? They can go on to do what they planned to do and probably with more of a vengence. You cannot treat them because there is no treatment or rehabilitation for psychopaths.

You can send them but what do you get out of a patient who won't answer questions and doesn't give information. You cannot treat a non-compliant patient nor can you force them to get treatment when they are showing nothing but behavioural problems. Remember they didn't do anything to warrant anything but a feeling of revulsion. Not enough to warrant care.

You ask about Prior history? Existing reports? Reports by whom? A prior history of what? As I said before a psychopath is marked by their ability to be presentable. They know what to say and how to behave under these circumstances. A psychopath needs to do something extreme to get noticed otherwise they simply live among us.

If they went about doing this for people who are not in the system it would look like witch hunting. Its simply not done...and rightfully so.

 

i prefer to err on the side of caution aka better a hundred guilty men go free than an innocent man hang

i dont envy the shot callers...............

arrest

deal

options

bye

 

I agree that teachers and fellow students shouldn't[/] be able to to: but surely they deserve more than being ignored?

The whole list that sniffy posted, several times.

And there'd no indications to a professional?

Mmm, okay.
Let's not risk accusations of witch hunting, we'll just keep with the dead school kids.

 

Sniffy's list is after the fact compiled and is from the diagnosic manual. All or some of those things on the list doesn't warrant severe intervention and isn't by themselves proof of ingrained mental illness. How many students cut themselves? How many speak of death and destruction...even right here in sciforums? How many are depressed and hate their life, their school mates, their teachers, their parents? How many listen to Marilyn Manson and think they're so outside the norm counter-cultural? How many have read Nietzsche and called themselves 'Gods' and others 'zombies' or 'herd animals' Are we to rally them all in? Looking for a needle in a hay stack?

And no there wouldn't necessarily be any indications to a professional unless they were under constant supervision or had killed their pets or given some proof etc.

I'm sorry Oli but one has to think of how laws can be abused or deny civil rights and liberties. Excuse them if they don't blindly go ahead and randomly take people off the streets looking for grounds due to suspicions.

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Sniify's list of reports from teachers and the students (including the web-site death threats) were before the incident.
Okay, like I said: ignore the concerned reports, 'cos hey, civil liberties are more important than dead kids, (even though there's nothing random about it - just actually acting on reports and concerns).
But Fraggle said that too didn't he?
Americans stockpile guns because they're scared of their own government.
Land of the free and all that.
I didn't realise how alien Americans are.

 

Reports after the fact Oli. The parents didn't think anything wrong so who is to intervene? By the way not a lot of people knew about the online death threats but even if they had they could like many here say it was venting, it was humor, it was rancour without substance or intent. I don't know what fraggle said. But laws have to safe guard against abuse of innocent people and their civil liberties ie. U.S government picking up suspected terrorists and jailing them without representation, proof or charges.

 

Go back and read the first link in post #163, it illustrates how it works even if someone has had prior violent acts and been convicted of them.

 

Can't find the post - but sniffy specifically gave one example dated two months (IIRC) before the incident, not including the teacher's comment about the violent essay.

But apparently the laws aren't doing it, or they're not trusted to: hence Fraggle's comments about "that's why citizens need guns - to protect us against our own government".
I may start a thread on that - it shocked the hell out me.

 

Its this link:

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/35646...ousmain26.html

A violent essay doesn't mean anything Oli! Its not grounds for everything hell it could mean he'll be a future screenwriter for films like SAW.

Well I won't comment about gun laws but i do think the laws are fine less you become a paranoid society and see a psychopath under every nook and cranny and become suspicious of every kind of behaviour that sits outside the norm.

 

Nope, that's dead.

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Scared the hell out the teacher enough to report it.

Nuh, okay.
Different national perspectives maybe?

 

Most people in the West don't understand the difference between right and wrong, what to speak of acting right.

It's all about 'finding your own meaning of life', hallelujah!