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Thoughts on your web text and the moderator?s comments for the program:

Your piece uses the term criminally insane---where does the term criminally insane come from? How does it mean? Is it a legal term? What stigma does it carry? Are there less loaded, more accurate terms----?persons guilty except for insanity??

There were about 4,500 individuals released from Oregon prisons every year---contrast this to about 120 individuals who were released from PSRB jurisdiction... Isn?t the very low rate of recidivism paramount to discussion---the 10 year rate for PSRB is about 2.5% and the rate people coming out of prisons is about 30%. Who should I be scared of? Isn?t the much higher risk (10-15 times) not from people who are mentally ill, but people from prison?
Why do people have fears that are disconnected from facts?

What is the history/context of mental illness in this country? Of stigma? Of fear? What is or isn?t true about people with mental illness? What risk do they pose? Shouldn?t your discussion press these questions?

Do facts matter? What drives our prejudices? What drives our fears? Why aren?t our communities clamoring about the dramatically higher levels they face from offenders coming out prison in living right next door to them, without them even knowing?

Our law enforcement community has made official statements that the perception of fear is what should drive our system. Is this good/appropriate public policy?

On the legal front, where is your discussion of the legal rights of people who are mentally ill? What about the Olmstead case which held that we can?t institutionalize individuals if they aren?t dangerous? In the 1960?s we had similar arguments about having black people as neighbors??how is this similar/different? Don?t we need to press for the facts, to see what?s real?

Please have another show on facts!

You?re missing the boat OPB (big time). The elephant in the room is not what you?re discussing. It?s about an ability to address how fear and not facts shape our public discourse---and how far off we from understanding mental illness in our society. I am very disappointed that you have not done enough homework to reach the issues we face.

Please read Andy Parker?s Oregonian piece from June 2-----he was driving at many points you are missing.

As I listen to this program you?re mired in details in today?s discussion. They are not unimportant, but are far less important than centuries of fear and stigma we inherit about mental illness. Your moderator just said of people leaving the Oregon State Hospital and headed to the community: "not of all them are dangerous"......Let's take a look at the premise in her statement. Are these individuals dangerous? Dangerous by whose definition? Compared to whom? An open ended fear trigger, pulled by the host, to end the show. Not good journalism.

Please OPB, you can and must do better. Oregonians expect and need this from you.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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