Judy Clarke, defense attorney for the Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner, wrote in a court filing the first week of June that giving Loughner psychiatric drugs could have “serious and possibly permanent side effects.” [Quote from the Nevada Missouri Herald-Tribune, June 11, 2011]
While we agree with this statement about the side effects of psychiatric drugs, we also know that Thomas Szasz in his book, The Myth of Mental Illness, said, “The introduction of psychiatric considerations into the administration of the criminal law – for example, the insanity plea and verdict, diagnoses of mental incompetence to stand trial, and so forth – corrupt the law and victimize the subject on whose behalf they are ostensibly employed.”
U.S. District Judge Larry Burns previously ruled that Loughner is mentally unfit to stand trial, and Loughner was sent to the Springfield, Missouri federal prison for psychiatric treatment.
Psychiatry’s increasing influence in criminal justice has produced only escalating crime rates internationally. Although incapable of either predicting future dangerousness or of rehabilitating criminals, psychiatrists still testify, in court on behalf of the highest bidder, asserting that offenders are not responsible for what they have done, but are instead “victims” of fictitious mental disorders. The result is rising crime, as lawbreakers are put back on the streets to wreak more havoc, unrepentant and uncorrected.
The rehabilitation of criminals is a long-forgotten dream. We build more prisons and pass even tougher laws in the belief that these will act as a deterrent. Meanwhile, honest people are losing faith in justice itself as they see vicious criminals avoid conviction through the use of bizarre and incomprehensible defense tactics. First and foremost it should be recognized that every person is responsible for his or her own actions and must be held accountable for their actions.
It is an old maxim that if a person wants to break the law with impunity he must become the law – a maxim taken to heart by psychiatrists. Psychiatry was posed as a solution to crime and became the problem. The first step to recovery is to remove psychiatric influence from the courts, police departments, prisons and schools.
For more information, click here to download and read the complete CCHR report, “Eroding Justice—Psychiatry’s Corruption of Law — Report and recommendations on psychiatry subverting the courts and corrective services.”