Writing Journal Assignment #3

Writing Journal Assignment #3
Cameron Foley
Eng1050

I found this article to be the most interesting of the three we have read thus far. While with the other two articles I feel I have had some personal experience with what I was reading about, I had no idea that the topics discussed in this article existed, or at least to this extent. The types of numbers given by the author in regards to the percentage of people who commit homicide and other violent that are also mentally ill. While it makes sense that in many cases it would take someone who is mentally unstable or mentally ill to do something as terrible as kill innocent people, I thought that for the most part violent crimes were carried out for other reasons. The other thing that I found the most astonishing was the fact that many of these people have had the option of getting help, or have been refused help. The idea that help is available for many of these people, without cost to them, was very surprising to me, and what was ever more interesting about was the idea that it is more expensive for the tax payers if these people do not get treatment than if they do.
Another issue brought up at the end of the article that was certainly the most controversial in my mind, was the idea that people can be forced to get treatment. While it makes sense that someone who has been convicted of a crime may have to receive treatment as part of their sentence, I'm not sure if I fully agree with forcing someone to get treatment for an illness if they haven't shown that they are dangerous. We do not force people to get treatment for physical illnesses, so I'm not sure if forcing someone to get treatment for a mental illness is ethical. There are certainly exceptions to this, like having people go to outpatient therapy, but in terms of locking someone up in a mental institution, I find that very wrong and immoral.