Here is a story
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wa...-in-bucks-county-pa-where-4-men-went-missing/
After reading through this story, do you agree that the "person of interest" acted alone as the story implies? Why? Or why not?
What are your thoughts about the person of interest being singled out for a history of mental illness?
Do you find that you sympathize with the person of interest because he has a history of mental ilness and therefore is not "really" responsible for his actions, why? Or why not?
Do you think these types of stiries are on the uprise? Or do you think historically they are break-even? Why or why not?
Possible. My understanding is that there's no evidence that suggests any other person's involvement so far. However, things will probably be clearer once the other bodies are ID'd. My brain kind of assumes that the other bodies are the other missing persons, but if not, then maybe one of them was involved. It's definitely not in his favor that one of the missing person's cars was found in his possession and that he tried to sell it.
While mental illness may or may not have a role in the story, it's typical to zero in on it. There's a definite stigma about the volatility of people who have a mental illness. The words "Schizophrenic", "hears voices", and "off their meds" come to mind. The assumption is that this "crazy person" is of course likely to murder people, especially because they are in possession of a gun, which happens to be against the law for them. People who are considered mentally healthy get into potentially fatal episodes of road rage daily, but toss mental illness into the mix and there's this knee-jerk head-nodding reaction. Mhm, crazy. While I'm not saying that it had nothing to do (assuming the POI is guilty) with the potential crime, I think that the tendency of infotainment is to always assume that it does. The person could have had an illness that was totally controlled and did not factor into the crime at all.
I don't necessarily sympathize with the POI d/t mental illness, but I would agree that
if they are guilty and
if mental illness is the driving factor, jail is not necessarily an appropriate answer. However I will note that I don't necessarily endorse the effectiveness of state hospitals as an alternative, and I can't say that I feel completely comfortable with there being no mandated treatment/evaluation. In other words, I'm ambivalent.
I don't think that the stories are necessarily on the uprise, but I do think that due to an explosion in access to information, it's way easier than it used to be to search for this kind of information/story and sensationalize it on an otherwise slow news day.
