Mixed feelings about criminal diagnoses

I have mixed feelings about the diagnosing of violent youth as diseased, but here’s the headline:

Hood Disease: Inner City Oakland Youth Suffering From Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

It’s what the government — and doctors at Harvard — are saying:

OAKLAND (KPIX 5) — In the inner city, a health problem is making it harder for young people to learn. The Centers for Disease Control said 30 percent of inner city kids suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The CDC said these children often live in virtual war zones. Doctors at Harvard said they actually suffer from a more complex form of PTSD that some call “hood disease.”

While I can’t spot every possible subtext, the experts seem to be attempting to convey a message that the rest of society should tiptoe around kids from the inner cities:

Jaliza Collins, also a teacher at Fremont, said, “It’s depression, it’s stress, it’s withdrawal, it’s denial. It’s so many things that is encompassed and embodied in them. And when somebody pushes that one button where it can be like, ‘please go have a seat,’ and that can be the one thing that just sets them off.”

Oh, well God forbid anyone should tell such a “child” to have a seat and wait in line, or ask him what the hell he thinks he is doing in your front yard. If he goes off, why, it’s not his fault!

The reason I have mixed feelings is that on the one hand I am skeptical of diagnosing criminal behavior as a disease, because that only makes the problem worse. Dangerous and violent people need to be locked up to protect the rest of us, and medicalizing their criminal behavior tends to hinder this important goal.

On the other hand, as M. Simon has shown in many posts, PTSD sufferers often turn to drugs for relief, and while drug taking in itself is non-violent and would not cause harm to society per se, the drug laws take what ought to be a medical problem and turn it into a criminal problem — and a huge economic opportunity.

What this means is that these kids have double the opportunity for going to go to jail. I’m all for protecting society against violent criminals (and I think that should be the only purpose for prisons) but under the current system, nonviolent offenders are just as likely if not more likely to be put away. For victimless crimes.

It is inevitable that society must punish people who are already internally punished and who punish others in turn, but punishing them for seeking relief from their condition (and sharing that relief with others) strikes me as downright sadistic.


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11 responses to “Mixed feelings about criminal diagnoses”

  1. RobinGoodfellow Avatar
    RobinGoodfellow

    There’s a cure for “hood disease,” and it is available in a variety of calibers.

  2. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    The elites have been telling us for decades that criminals aren’t responsible for their behavior. It’s always something else, bad toilet training, society’s to blame, poverty, sugar in breakfast cereal, preservatives, video games, etc. Gotta be something, I mean, people wouldn’t just be criminal scumbags sui generis, now would they?

    What this never explains is why others from equally deprived backgrounds aren’t criminals.

  3. Simon Avatar

    Eric, MMM,

    I spent a few years in an outlaw MC gang – a long, long time ago.

    In my experience every single gang member had a PTSD problem. And the PTSD was caused by child abuse.

    We don’t have a gang problem, we don’t have a drug problem. Those are symptoms. We have a child abuse problem.

  4. Simon Avatar

    What this never explains is why others from equally deprived backgrounds aren’t criminals.

    The difference is genetics. Only about 20% of the population is susceptible to long term PTSD.

  5. Simon Avatar

    punishing them for seeking relief from their condition (and sharing that relief with others) strikes me as downright sadistic.

    It strikes me that way too.

    And thanks for the links!

  6. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    Simon-
    I’m not disputing your claim. (much)But-
    I’d like to know what the empirical basis for a PTSD diagnosis is. Is it a distinct, identifiable condition, or is it a bucket diagnosis that covers a lot of differing problems?

    Bad child rearing? That would include most of human history. What people considered acceptable child rearing was appalling by modern standards.

  7. Randy Avatar
    Randy

    A few years ago, I would have scoffed at assertions like the PTSD study Eric links to. But as time has passed, I’ve come to the conclusion that who we are and what we become are the products of several factors. Genetics, genetic defects, social environment, culture, moral norms, laws, etc. all factor into us becoming us. Some of these factors are beyond our control while others aren’t.

    The laws we enact are under our control. I’ve maintained for sometime now that enforcing our drug prohibition laws played a major role in fomenting bad social pathologies in low income urban areas. Many urban areas are war zones were gangs rule and fear and violence is a constant reality. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in that environment. I don’t think I’d be the person I am today if I had been raised in that world.

    Radley Balko wrote an excellent piece that explains the long term effects of drug law enforcement. I’ve linked to it before. If you haven’t read it, please do.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2014/01/28/drugs-vs-the-drug-war-a-response-to-michael-gerson/

  8. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    I lost all respect for Balko when he tried to recruit his minions to get Steve Sailer fired from his day job for disagreeing with Balko on line.

    Meanwhile, all 1960s policies have been complete failures. That includes war on poverty, drugs and Vietnam.

    See Losing Ground by Charles Murray or some of Thomas Sowell’s books.

  9. Simon Avatar

    MMM,

    PTSD is not too difficult to diagnose. You look for trauma and genetic markers although because of the expense checking the genetic markers is mostly not done.

    Bad child rearing is only a problem for the 20% genetically susceptible to PTSD. So not much is done.

    Politicians with PTSD are a problem. One only needs to review the early life of Stalin (and his arch rival in Germany) to see what kind of politicians PTSD produces.

  10. c andrew Avatar
    c andrew

    On a more substantive note, the War on Drugs and its bad outcomes are excused by Conservatives on the same basis they routinely accuse the Left of practicing; “But we had good intentions.”