Competency Hearings

Your article regarding Department 95 (“Where the Mind Is on Trial,” Aug. 24), failed to recognize the needless suffering mentally ill citizens experience as a result of the convoluted legalism surrounding issues of involuntary treatment. By the very nature of their neurobiological disorder, victims of major psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia frequently cannot recognize their need for medical treatment. Rather than acknowledging society’s moral obligation to intercede when they cannot, we instead grant the victims the civil right to wander to their detriment, untreated.

Point in hand: In affluent Belmont Shore a young man walks on 2nd Street in what appears to be an active episode of a schizophrenic illness. I have watched him limp as his foot became infected from the dirt inherent in his homeless environment. The police do not intercede because of a lack of probable cause. Probable cause will not occur until he can no longer walk or becomes so florid in his symptoms that he offends passersby. Instead, we call his societal non-care a “lifestyle” choice. As an individual all I can do is give him an occasional sandwich and clean pair of socks.

Unless our society is to be judged in infamy for the way we treat our weaker members, we must take legislative action to grant the human right of medical treatment instead of the legalistic rhetoric of non-care.

CARLA JACOBS

Long Beach