(June 24, 2016) Psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are vastly overrepresented among family homicides, according to a new study released this week from the Treatment Advocacy Center entitled "Raising Cain: The Role of Serious Mental Illness in Family Homicides.”
"It's insanity to close down psychiatric facilities and make treatment in the community almost impossible to access, leaving family members with the impossible task of picking up the pieces," said E. Fuller Torrey, lead author of the study and founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center. "These sorts of tragedies are the logical result."
The study reported that in nearly 30% of all family homicides the offender was reported to have a serious psychiatric disease and abuse of alcohol or drugs and failure to take medication prescribed for serious mental illness were major risk factors for committing a family homicide.
"Family homicides are merely the most visible of the problems associated with being unable to obtain treatment for a seriously mentally ill family member," said Executive Director John Snook. "But long before such an incident takes place, you will invariably find a family stymied by the very mental health system that should have been their loved one's refuge."