Friday, October 21, 2005

Who failed Lashaun Harris?

More news on the sad case of Lashaun Harris, the mother in California who threw her three young children to their death from the pier. [Photo is from the Harris family via AP, from happier days.]

- She had a history of schizophrenia and multiple hospitalizations
- She had been hearing voices – that told her to throw her kids in the bay
- She had been off her medication for 4-5 months ("She's been going crazy for a while," her half sister told reporters.)
- On Wednesday, she told her family that “she was going to feed the kids to the sharks.”

People need to start asking why California isn't implementing and using Laura's Law - there is no excuse not to use a law that is saving lives in places like New York,where 74% fewer participants experienced homelessness, 77% fewer experienced psychiatric hospitalization, 55% fewer recipients engaged in suicide attempts or physical harm to self and 47% fewer physically harmed others.

Arguments against implementation ring pretty hollow when you see how many people are being helped in New York (people who, incidentally, are already costing the state quitea bit through emergency rooms and repeated hospitalizations) - and how many people are suffering in California.

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