A new report, ​“Double Tragedies,” address­es the ques­tion of whether peo­ple with severe men­tal ill­ness should face the death penal­ty. The report was authored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR) and called for treat­ment and pre­ven­tion instead of exe­cu­tion for such offend­ers. The report, based on exten­sive inter­views with 21 fam­i­ly mem­bers in 10 dif­fer­ent states, calls the death penal­ty ​“inap­pro­pri­ate and unwar­rant­ed” for peo­ple with severe men­tal dis­or­ders. Families of mur­der vic­tims joined with fam­i­lies of per­sons with men­tal ill­ness to speak out against the death penal­ty at NAMI’s annu­al con­ven­tion on July 6 in San Francisco. ​“Family oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty is ground­ed in per­son­al tragedy,” said MVFHR exec­u­tive direc­tor Renny Cushing. ​“In the pub­lic debate about the death penal­ty and how to respond in the after­math of vio­lent crime, these are the voic­es that need to be heard.” ​“Most peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness are not vio­lent,” added NAMI exec­u­tive direc­tor Mike Fitzpatrick. ​“When vio­lent tragedies occur they are excep­tion­al — because some­thing has gone ter­ri­bly wrong, usu­al­ly in the men­tal health care sys­tem. Tragedies are com­pound­ed and all our families suffer.”

The report makes four basic rec­om­men­da­tions:

· Ban the death penal­ty for peo­ple with severe men­tal ill­ness­es.

· Reform the men­tal health care sys­tem to focus on treat­ment and pre­ven­tion.

· Recognize the needs of fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims through rights to infor­ma­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion in crim­i­nal or men­tal health pro­ceed­ings.

· And rec­og­nize the fam­i­lies of exe­cut­ed per­sons as vic­tims and give them the assis­tance due to any vic­tims of trau­mat­ic loss.

The report states that at least 100 peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness have been put to death in the United States and hun­dreds more are await­ing exe­cu­tion. The full report may be read here.

(National Alliance on Mental Illness Press Release, July 6, 2009). See Mental Illness and Studies.

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