Three years ago this month, I graduated with my M.S. in Crime and Justice Studies with extensive coursework in Mental Health Counseling (long story). One year ago this month I completed a second advanced degree, in Forensic Mental Health.
Basically I spend my work day researching and talking to colleagues about the very events that transpired on Friday. I can describe in detail a gruesome homicide or a horrible sexual assault and not even flinch. I've become detached, immune almost to the tragedy. A lot of what I do is focused on children involved in the legal system, whether as delinquents or as victims. Violence happens every single day; Chicago averages a little over 500 homicides a year, 80% involve guns, and more than half have victims under the age of 25 (University of Chicago Crime Lab).
I can rattle off statistics about violence at schools, but that makes the experience of grief so clinical. I can be angry at the journalists who reported false information just for the sake of having the breaking story, or the "journalists" who shoved cameras in the faces of seven year olds post trauma. I am very angry at them, but until we as a society decide not to stand for sensationalism, that is our media.
I can want to personally drive to every idiot on my twitter and facebook timelines residence and scream at them for their inaccurate, absurd, and dangerous presumptions about mental illness and criminal behavior. And I do want to. But instead I'll go on little rants on twitter, and try my best to educate my friends and family and coworkers about deinstitutionalization in the 1960s leading to prisons and jails becoming de facto mental health facilities. I can talk about the lack of mental health treatment in correctional facilities, the horrible continuity of care when an individual is released from institutional corrections, and the lack of access to mental health treatment that the general public faces.
I can be so angry my stomach hurts about the stigma of mental illness, the lack of understanding we show our mentally ill friends and family members, and the hurdles one has to jump through just to receive mental health care. But I'll eat some candy, feel a little better, and try even harder to improve access to mental health care for those in my community.
I can love the Constitution and those inalienable rights we are all given, but I also can understand that we live in a flawed society and those due process rights we are afforded do not mean we are all treated equal under the eyes of the law. I can also appreciate that the Constitution was written at a time where we didn't have a formal policing system in this country and it wasn't for another 50 years that we even saw what was going on in London and decided to adopt it as our own. I can respect the law and take the handgun safety course and apply for my handgun permit. But I cannot respect the need for automatic weapons to be manufactured, distributed, and permitted in some states. I cannot respect the need for certain states to permit traveling gun shows where anyone, seriously anyone, can purchase a weapon without a thorough background check and safety training. We don't have standing militias any longer, so we don't quite need immediate access to weaponry.
But I can be sad, I can talk, I can appreciate what I have, and I can hope to make a difference in some way.
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