Mental Illness Used as Misleading Alibi

A recent news article said “Man Pleads Guilty to Having 3 Wives. Lawyer Cites a Childhood Mental Disorder.”

This is another example of blatant disregard for those truly afflicted with mental illness, thereby magnifying the stigma associated with such disease. It makes me furious that these criminals are actually recidivist sociopaths and with the help of their lawyers try to extricate themselves from their crimes by claiming to have a mental disorder. Worst of all, educated and ignorant professionals in mental illness condone their unforgivable act by putting the blame on mental illness.

I have been an advocate and a volunteer for many years to those with mental illness. The mentally ill people I have known and come to love are afraid to commit crimes. The mentally ill person commits crimes, mostly petty crimes, out of survival. They shoplift because they are hungry or in need of the item. They don’t hurt others because they want to, and if they do assault someone it is because their illness makes them paranoid and afraid of being hurt by the other person. Few commit violent crimes, because they have been mentally ill for quite some years and the government chooses to ignore and neglect to treat them.

Psychopaths are different from sociopaths. It’s time for citizens and our leaders to know the big difference and put a stop to using mental illness as an excuse for committing such dastardly crimes. The sociopath should be incarcerated depending on the crimes committed, just like the ordinary citizens. No excuses. The mentally ill must be treated and the government must have responsibility to treat them just like other people with illnesses.

Let us not further denigrate our mentally ill. They have already a very low self-esteem because of their illness. Mental illness is just another kind of disease. Don’t blame the illness for the wrongdoings of the sociopath, especially recidivist criminals. Wake up, fellow Americans, and be sensitive to our mentally ill--the forgotten, the downtrodden and the most gullible population to prey on!

LITA Z. BIEJO, Moorpark