Virginia Tech School Shooting Essay

School campus is a place for young minds to learn and grow in pursuit of a post-graduated life. Nothing is more exciting than the days leading up to graduation; to think, “I made it”. Years of pursuing passion and failing miserably, countless hours spent in a quiet library and thousands of dollars spent on coffee. All this hard work leads here to graduation, and they have earned it. These individuals put off desire and even life goals to achieve a brighter tomorrow, even if that means spending a Friday night at Willis Library or neglecting hobbies. They exert extreme care into their future with the assumption tomorrow has greater potential than today. “You can play now or play later” a phrase many undergrads are reminded constantly. Unfortunately, a growing concern inhabits the minds of college students, parents, and faculty after the Virginia Tech shooting. On April 16th, 2007 a senior at Virginia Tech fatally shot 32 people and 23 others wounded once the dust settled

In the late 1800’s people with mental illness weren 't accomdated like people are today. Often people with illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, we 're teased and forced to lock themselves in a room away from civilization. No one truly cared for those with mental illness or tried to find out ways to accomdate them in school or regular life. Even when mental hospitals became more helpful those suffering from different illnesses would rather stay at home in fear than to seek professional help because of the risk of getting teased or called pathetic. The mentally ill patients were made prisoners, sent to alms houses or forced to remain at home because the first colonist believed they were “sick in the head” due to practicing

Prior to the mid-1960 virtually all mental health treatment was provided on an inpatient basis in hospitals and institutions. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 was established with its primary focus on deinstitutionalizing mentally ill patients, and shutting down asylums in favor of community mental health centers. It was a major policy shift in mental health treatment that allowed patients to go home and live independently while receiving treatment, (Pollack & Feldman, 2003).

In the book Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, one of the biggest focal points is mental illness. Mental illness can be tough to talk about, simply because the phrase “mental illness” encompasses such a wide range of conditions and conjures up images of deranged people, but it is very important, especially in this book. There is a certain stigma that people who are put into mental hospitals because they have medical problems or are insane and a possible danger to society. While this is sometimes true, it is far more common for patients to need help for a disorder, but just don’t know where to go or what to do, and can end up putting themselves or someone else in danger.

There have been 18 school shootings across the nation since January 1, 2018, which includes shootings where guns were fired accidentally and no one was injured, according to www.bing.com. This is a major problem because many students, staff, and families are being affected. It is a trend that mental illness is the root cause of the shooter’s actions. This is a small part of the reason; however, I believe there are many other reasons: grandparents are raising children, guns are too accessible, violent video games, social media, news media, and the internet.

Today there are more mentally ill people in prisons and jails in the United States than any hospital or psych facility in this country. Cook County Jail in Chicago, Illinois is the largest mental health institution in the country. When a mentally ill person gets arrested for a violent crime they stay three to four times longer than a regular violent offender. “One third of those incarnated in cook county jail suffers from psychological disorders.” According to a 2006 Justice Department study, more than half of prisoners in the United States Suffer from some sort of mental health problem. The study also says that among female inmates one third of them have some type of mental disorder. In prisons and jails, prisoners sit in their cells majority

This paper will be discussing how the Vietnam war and Kent state shooting tie together and how it affected lives afterwards. The Kent State Shooting on May 4, 1970 was a culmination of the anti war movement because Four Kent state students were killed protesting the invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam war.

Mad in America, by Robert Whitaker, details the history of the treatment of mental illnesses in our country, including one of the most infamous, the lobotomy.

Nicholas Kristof, a writer for the New York Times, and in his op-ed article titled “Lessons From the Virginia Shooting” (Aug. 26, 2015), proposes that the lesson learned from the shooting of two journalists in Virginia should be different gun laws that should somewhat reflect the already standing laws that Americans already have in place. While Kristof gives his attempt at fixing gun violence in the United States, he fails make his point on many different levels. Kristof begins by reminding readers of the Virginia shooting follows with statistics relating to gun violence in the United States, then starts to recommend that the gun control laws should be changed to match that of other things that have safety regulations. Kristof is trying to

Gladwell article was agreeable and disagreeable. There is a lot of school shooting happening, but it 's not getting popular and everyone isn 't going to start shooting up their school. The article has some agreeable saying, but yet there are some that you have to think about and realized it 's all wrong. In the article they give examples on how the teens that do shoot up their schools or just schools in general have the same mindset, but that 's not true. They all have different reasons why they do it. These teens that do this don 't become credibilities or suddenly become popular, these teens all end up in a place where they did not imagine themselves to end up in and that place is called a Psychiatric Hospital. So how do teens and LaDue

An estimated one in four of all adult Americans suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year. These mental disorders can range anywhere from mild mood disorders to extreme, uncontrollable cases of schizophrenia. Criminals who have been found guilty for committing a crime may have difficulty with both serving the punishment and recovering from their mental disease because of the sentence given to them. Often times, this sentence is crippling for the mentally ill individuals, as a prison is not an ideal place at all for patients with inner problems-- a prison would actually make the individual’s condition worse. The major problem here arises when these individuals with mental health issues cannot make that progress to better themselves

The topic I wish to research is prisoners with mental illness and the level of support and treatment they receive. I have started off by looking at the amount of support that prisoners with mental illness receive from both services and the prison staff (correctional officers, psychologists, doctors/nurses, supervisor, etc.). I will further my knowledge by researching the prisoner's and look at their thoughts towards support with mental health, and compare it to the prison staff's assessment. With this research in mind, I hope to get a better understanding of how the prisoners and those involved in delivering support and treatment for prisoners with mental illness feel about the level of support and treatment.

“People with mental health problems are almost never dangerous. In fact, they are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators. At the same time, mental illness has been the common denominator in one act of mass violence after another.” In his statement, Roy Blunt gives a new perspective on how crimes are related to mental illnesses. As he mentions, not all people with mental illnesses are dangerous, however, it seems that the blame for violent crimes is almost always put on a mental illness. Not only are individuals with mental illnesses blamed for how their brain works under certain circumstances, but they are also punished as a way to prevent them from committing a similar crime in the future. However, most people can agree that these serious mental illnesses should be cared for and attempted to be cured, not only for health reasons, but also for overall safety in society. In fact, studies show that many criminals that are in prison today are actually suffering from a serious mental illness.

New York in the 80s had streets full of citizens who were homeless and were being institutionalized for a mental disability, such as the case of Joyce Brown. The use of involuntary psychiatric commitment for an individual – although a justifiable act to a physician due to the principle of utility stating the need to help the most people for the best outcome – should not deny a patient’s right to autonomy, especially at the cost of non-maleficence.

In the 1961 article titled “Psychiatry in American Life” published in The Atlantic magazine, American psychiatrist and author Geer William wrote that “The typical state hospital does a good job keeping patients physically alive and mentally sick." (qtd. in Ford). Although many advances have been made in the field of mental health, one core issue remains the same. Which is the mentally ill being pushed into facilities that are seldom concerned with the patient’s well-being. -------------