People with Mental Illness Are More Likely to Be Abused by Law Enforcement

Source: Emiliano Bar/Unsplash

“Every time the police come after me they make me madder,” says Richard Saville-Smith, Ph.D.

Saville-Smith is an independent scholar in the United Kingdom who writes about madness. He lives with madness himself. In early June his wife was worried about him and she phoned the physician, who then phoned the police. “The police officers were female and they were so fit they could run after me. I told them I didn’t want to be locked up," says Saville-Smith. "My environment was safe for me. I had my own bed, I knew how everything worked.”

They wrestled him into submission. “They cracked my rib and gave me abrasions all over my arm. There’s still nerve damage to my fingers,” he says. After an altercation with the two police officers, Saville-Smith was involuntarily hospitalized.

It’s no secret that the mentally ill have violent interactions with law enforcement. Anyone experiencing psychosis understands they risk incarceration and physical attack should anything happen in public. In a recent case that garnered national attention, an African American man named Jordan Neely, was having a psychotic episode on the subway in New York City before he was strangled to death as a passenger attempted to quiet his episode.

Such reactions are frequent in people with psychosis. While Neely’s case happened in the U.S., Saville-Smith’s case happened in the UK. Both experienced a violent altercation that escalated potentially due to intersectional forces. Neely was Black, while Saville-Smith is an older adult.

People who have serious mental illness are overrepresented in prison populations. About 600,000 people arrested in the state of New York between 2010 and 2013 were matched to public health records to determine who had a serious mental health condition in the 12 months before their arrest.

Between 4 percent and 6 percent had serious mental illness. That number was associated with a 50 percent rate of increase in the odds of sentences for misdemeanor arrests. Interestingly, rates of mental illnesses were not associated with charges for felonies.

That number escalates when accounting for global populations. It is predicted that approximately 40 percent of incarcerated individuals suffer from a mental health condition, according to a study published in World Social Psychiatry. Psychotic illnesses, specifically, occur two to 16 times more, and depression occurs two to six times more than other illnesses in these populations.

According to a study published in 2018 in the Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 23 percent of individuals who were killed during altercations with law enforcement in 2015 in America had a serious mental illness. Associations like race and mental illness increased the likelihood that subjects might be killed as well. Individuals with mental illness were also more likely to be killed at home.

But it’s not just within the home and in public spaces that the mad are killed. While Saville-Smith and Neely were attacked, and the latter killed, in their homes and on public transportation, some people with severe schizophrenia also experience negligence and abuse within the prison system itself.

Tammie Davenport Wiruth knew she had to help her son, who has a diagnosis of schizophrenia, when she discovered he was being abused by Chatham County Jail, a small jail in the state of Georgia.

In her Facebook group, Justice for Justin, she shared a document released by the jail that detailed the negligence carried about by the staff. “[Davenport-Wiruth’s son] was observed… with his lower half covered in blood,” it reads. The report goes on to detail that her son spoke of being paranoid about the officers attempting to kill him. He was reported of being scared and delusional as he lay on the prison bed. The report concludes that “he will be assessed at a further time.” There was no record of her son being given a new set of clothes or help to clean up his cell.

After Davenport-Wiruth spoke with the office that runs the jail, she discovered that they could not make medical decisions for her son while he was in jail. This sent Davenport-Wiruth into what turned into a year-long mission to save her son. Her Facebook group garnered hundreds of supporters, and now, a year later after fighting for her son, he has returned to a healthy state and is “working out at the gym,” according to the Facebook group. He even gives up any found recreational drugs to his mother after deciding not to get involved with it anymore.

According to a 2022 news article by Valdosta Daily Times, an inmate died within three months of being kept in that same jail. The jail staff was reported to deny the inmate medical care after he appeared to be suffering from cardiomyopathy. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Sept. 20 hearing found that nearly 1,000 deaths went unreported by the Department of Justice in 2021. Inmates’ constitutional rights are going unprotected.

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While the issue of police injustice has been a major topic of concern worldwide; it is still a topic that needs major reform. Programs that equip law enforcement with social workers and other mental health professionals during dispatch calls are being deployed across the country to help mitigate the drastic effects that occur between law enforcement and those with severe mental illness.

“The idea of being wrestled to the ground by two fit female officers might seem like some men’s advance bondage fantasy, but to me, I just wanted to go home,” says Saville-Smith. “And I was at home. They stole me from my home.”

Hopefully, with time, program development, research, and implementation, the rights and autonomy of inmates will be preserved.