I have witnessed today Dr. Drew live on CNN saying that the solution for parents whose children are showing mental illness symptoms is to “call the cops”. I believe that this is a terrible idea and one which shows a sort of “bureaucratic” way to “solve the issue”. Let’s take a close look at this “solution” effects on short and long term. First we have to realize that the police is defined as a “law enforcement” entity. The police is there to use reasonable force to enforce the laws of a group upon an individual or a sub group of individuals. We know that the police has no authority or resources to “teach” the laws, but simply to forcefully impose the law. One more important aspect of the law enforcement is that the law can only be enforced after the individual(s) are breaking the it! The police can’t and it should not be “preemptive”; if anyone has any doubts on why, please remember the case explored in the movie “Minority report“.
So, if the only way to save his child a parent has is to “call the Cops” as Dr. Drew suggested publicly I really believe Mr. Drew lives in a fantasy world since this has a very little probability to happen! How many parents will do that? That is, since, once done they risk to damage their relation with their child for a log time (maybe forever). On the other hand this is a futile suggestion because the police will certainly ask “what law did the child broke” in order to be able to act. Then what is next? How will that child feel towards his parents? And on long term, if that child can’t rely anymore (by his state of mind) on his parents since he will most likely feel betrayed by them will he be a better person? Why?
We already know by the awful experience we see now surfacing from various “bureaucratic” institutions which badly treated children all over the worlds (US, Canada, etc, etc) when children are only seen as inanimate objects which are “used” by some “employees” to satisfy their own mental necessities. How can someone still suggest that any institution can “replace” the parents?
My humble opinion is, that institutions must help families to help their kids. I strongly believe that w,e as a society, must strive to help the parents to grow their children in a way which is socially acceptable, long before this kind of horrific events can happen. But this is not an easy thing, not easy to be done nor to explain, which makes them less marketable.
Again some of us are pushing for short (or very short) term solutions and completely ignore long term, more stable and desirable solutions.