It’s difficult to know what to think about the human tragedy of the terrible event on the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne yesterday. I simply can’t contemplate what would possess somebody to (according to witness accounts reported in The Age) throw his four-year-old daughter off the top of a bridge.
Whatever the appropriate policy response to these events (and the broader issues around family violence, something we perhaps don’t cover enough on LP), I’m rather surprised at the government immediate response – fast-tracking installation of suicide barriers on the bridge.
I appreciate that suicides (and, perhaps, this man’s actions) are often impulsive events, and that a bridge like the Westgate represents a particularly accessible and obvious place where that impulse might be exercised. There may well be a case for installing such barriers on the bridge as soon as possible. But if the impulse to kill a four-year-old child strikes a fully-grown adult, there are innumerable other ways in which they can achieve, and, on too many other occasions have achieved, that terrible goal.
So, if other children are to be saved from similar fates, fencing off high things is a pretty unlikely way to achieve it. Intervening before it gets to this point – and I don’t claim to know how that might be done better, in this case or in general – would seem to me to be the only approach that has any long-term chance of a substantial reduction in the incidence of such shocking events, including the less dramatic ones that get reported as statistics rather than news.
I didn’t really peruse any media until lunch time today and I’m shocked to see the Father’s photo, name, kids ages, workplace and home suburb plastered all over the media. What purpose does this serve except to expose his family to further trauma?
The fence speeding up is one of those irrational “policies” we see politicians announcing in response to media emotionalism. Sure it’s bloody awful hearing of a father comitting murder by throwing a kid off a bridge but hardly more awful than kids being murdered by belting, shaking or starving.
In 30 years the bridge has been up and millions of cars containing kids and dads there has only been one murder – this one. Spending $20m on a fence seems a silly response.
I realise the fence has been planned for some time to stop people jumping as I understand it. I haven’t searched for any info, and I do understand that oppurtunity has some role in suicides, but I would question the building of the fence anyway.
“I didn’t really peruse any media until lunch time today and I’m shocked to see the Father’s photo, name, kids ages, workplace and home suburb plastered all over the media. What purpose does this serve except to expose his family to further trauma?”
Spot on and it may well be in contempt of court as matters to do with this case have been before the Family Court.
I don’t know if it is just my perception, hysterical media reporting or a combination of the two, but there seems to have been a spate of these sort of things in recent years: man gets pissed off with ex-wife/family courts/welfare department/job (insert problem here) and his response to the difficulties is to murder his family and usually kill himself as well. What is it in the psyche of these men? In what possible way can they justify in their own mind the killing of their child; their own flesh and blood? I just don’t get it. I am at a loss, as a mother and as a woman, to understand it. It’s appalling and horrifying and just … words fail me. I weep for those left behind who have to make some sort of sense of it AND deal with the grief.
Women do it too, chinda63, so be wary of focussing your bewilderment too narrowly.
Maybe if they fence public places people will just go back to killing their kids at home where we don’t have to watch or do anything?
I can see the merit in suicide barriers, if not to prevent child murders, but it’s a pity that it had to be a tragedy like this that finally gets them installed.
When I first heard about this tragedy, my two immediate thoughts were: the poor little girl, and why the hell isn’t there a barrier on the bridge, like on the Gateway Bridge in BrisVegas? That the gummint wants to fast-track the installation of such barriers as a response is neither surprising nor irrational to me.
What this fellow did is terrible – almost unbelieveable. However, it appears, more so than in other cases, he may not be of sound mind. Apparently he hasn’t spoken a word since his arrest, is considered psychologically unfit to stand trial and is on suicide watch. I hasten to add this observation is in no way a justification of his action.
As for the wider problem of family violence, it seems no matter what we do – education campaigns, ads, social censure or whatever, you name it – it has no effect on a small minority.Perhaps the lesson to be learnt from this is thatbfamily breakdown sometimes brings on mental illness – assuming the perpetrator, whatever their gender, was not already mentally ill. Maybe that’s something people who intervene in these situations should look at carefully on both compassionate and as a means of predicting irrational violent action, if they don’t do so already.
“there has only been one murder ”
Yes, but sadly there have been many suicides, I’m told; so the high fence could be justified as a preventative of such. Now it may be said, “Oh, they’ll find some other way to suicide!”
OK, then. The fences are to stop people who alight from their vehicle after it breaks down, from being blown off the bridge by strong winds. Is that OK? Safety features are built in to many public places and facilities, even though their full protective value is rarely called upon.
And if you want an example of irrational gummint knee-jerk response: in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago, a bloke was texting on his mobile phone while driving on the freeway and drove a bit erratically. Some other clown, annoyed at this, pulled up next to him at an offramp, produced a gun and shot the texting driver dead.
The gummint response: ban texting while driving. Guns in the car? Whatever.
This is a response to a different issue. The kid being thrown over the edge of the bridge will never happen again, and I’ll stake my (admittedly poor, in this forum) reputation on that.
However, from various sources, apparently between 1 and 3 people throw themselves off that bridge every week, some never to be see again, others washing up at Newport. Mark Mercuri, champion footballer for Essendon, was never the same after his brother committed suicide from the top of the West Gate Bridge.
However, how true is it that a tragedy of this magnitude sparks government into action. We don’t really hear about suicides, and particularly hear little about the details (such as Richard Marsland), other than to say “there were no suspicious circumstances” with a little footer about Lifeline at the end of the newspaper story. We probably need more focus on suicide, as well as family violence issues which I’ll leave to people infinitely more qualififed to talk about it than I.
OBJECTIVE: To describe characteristics of people who jumped from the Westgate Bridge (identifying risk factors for attempted suicide) and to determine why people may survive such a jump.
DESIGN AND SETTING: A retrospective case review (coroners’ reports and hospital records) of all people known to have jumped from the Westgate Bridge between 1991 and 1998. RESULTS: We identified 62 people who jumped from the Westgate Bridge over the study period. Seven survived. Forty-one (74%) of those who jumped were male. The average age was 33.8 years (range, 15-58 years). Forty-four (71%) had known mental illness (23 schizophrenia, 21 depression). Thirty-nine (63%) landed in water, falling from a height of 58.5 m. Nineteen (31%) fell onto land and in four cases (6%) the landing site was not determined. All survivors landed in water. Six people died from drowning after the fall, and in eight more deaths drowning was a major or contributing factor. All jumps resulted from suicidal intent, and 12 people (19%) had positive toxicology screens for alcohol or other non-prescription drugs at postmortem.
CONCLUSIONS: Each year the Westgate Bridge is the scene of about eight suicide attempts by jumping (particularly by men with active psychiatric illness). Some deaths by drowning could be prevented by early detection and rapid emergency service response. The erection of an effective safety barrier would probably prevent more deaths.
From: PubMed
Howard: there is a debate about the appropriate reporting of suicides, with some mental health professionals arguing that it should be very limited to discourage copycat behaviour. There’s a few items on the Australian Press Council website about this – see their guidelines, and this letter, for instance.
However, the consequence of this reticence on the matter is that people are far less aware of the magnitude of the issue than they might be if it was reported more often and colourfully.
The above study abstract was from PubMed.
The actual ref:
Jumping from the Westgate Bridge, Melbourne.
Coman M, Meyer AD, Cameron PA.
Med J Aust. 2000 Jan 17;172(2):52-3.
eMJA Suicide in Australia: some good news Robert D Goldney
Some extracts from editorial:
Since 1997, when the number of Australians committing suicide peaked at 2720, there has been a sustained reduction in the number of suicides each year. The most recently available figure — 2098 suicides in 20041 — represents an age-standardised suicide rate of 10.4 per 100 000 population, 29% lower than the rate of 14.7 per 100 000 in 1997. The figures are even more striking for people aged 15–24 years, for whom there was a reduction in suicide rates of about 50% — from 19.3 to 9.6 per 100 000 between 1997 and 2004.1 These figures have not achieved the media publicity that they warrant.
The increase in antidepressant prescribing may be a proxy marker for improved overall management of depression. If so, increased prescribing of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in general practice may have produced a quantifiable benefit in population mental health.7
This observation is consistent with the recent report by Ludwig and Marcotte,8 who, after analysing antidepressant use and suicide rates in 27 different countries, calculated that the rate of suicide for those 27 countries would have been 17% higher in 1999 than in 1990, but for the introduction of newer antidepressants.
Full text here: http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/185_06_180906/gol10692_fm.html
Fixing the bridge is not the problem. The problem is domestic violence. Separation is the most dangerous time for women and children. More women and children are murdered by men post separation than at any other time. Women and children are consistently being put at risk of abuse, violence and homicide because of a family law system that prioritises fathers having contact with their children regardless of past history of violence, abuse and mental health problems. Safety needs to be the first priority in family law – safety from ongoing abuse and violence. Under pressure from the men’s rights groups the family law act has strengthened fathers’ rights post separation at the expense of safety from domestic violence and child abuse. Children’s rights is about children having the right to live free from violence and not to be placed at risk of homicide.
Hannah’ Dad: permit me to be Devil’s advocate here for a moment. It’s not a given that changing the guidelines pertaining to fathers’ access to their children would reduce violence against women and children.
Hypothetically, isn’t it possible that tightening guidelines, leading to more fathers being denied access to their children, might result in more fathers either a) resorting to violent, illegal means to gain access to their children, or b) committing violence against their children?
Furthermore, assuming that continued contact with both parents is, absent other factors, desirable, as a society we have to consider the damage done by denying contact and weigh it up against the risks posed by that contact.
You might be right that the current balance is wrong. I don’t know. But there sure ain’t any easy answers in this area.
From media reports, it appears that family separation was an immediate issue (the previous 24 hours). If, as seems likely, the father of this child was in a psychotic state then attention needs to turn to the immediate context of the Family Court. I don’t mean that the judge or other court staff be asked to assess the psychiatric state of every person they deal with. But it must be asked: are there any psychologists or psychiatrists on hand who are able to detect signs of acute stress or anxiety, or the physical manifestations of an impending psychotic episode?
Such support, counselling and vigilance can’t prevent every incidence of post-separation domestic violence; but I’m willing to bet that it would improve the safety of most families involved.
A suicide bridge on the Westgate is imperative. So is a well developed policy response that takes mental health and domestic violence very seriously.
As a Family Lawyer (10 yrs standing) I have absolutely no sympathy whatsover for this man. I don’t give a damn how badly he was screwed by the system (and I have seen some absolutely appalling results in Court). If there was a decision adverse to him then I would say that, given the subsequent evidence, such a decision was hardly the incorrect one.
In my professional experience, the worst cases of violence (threats, assaults and murder) happen after an abusive (usually both psychologicially and physically) partner, usually male, finally realises that despite all of his pressure, his partner is not returning ‘home’ and that the relationship is at and end.
This is only the most publicity-worthy crime of this kind. Threats, stalking, abuse and violence post-separation are only too prevalent.
Frog (@17) there is no practical way for the Court to have professionals on hand of the kind you describe. When the Court orders a psychological / psychiatric evaluation, it will usually not be completed / available for several months. The security staff at the Court are certainly available for violent outbreaks. The main danger is later ‘at home’.
Calls by Mens Rights Groups to ‘reform’ the Family Law Act are usually shameless in their attempts to retain a man’s dominance over his ex post-sepraration.
What Hannah’s Dad and Aussiesmurf said. The last sentence of Aussiesmurf’s first paragraph says it all.
FDB – yes, women do it as well, albeit rarely and ALWAYS
So Robert at #16 you are suggesting that we give violent fathers what they want – contact with their children – so that they won’t get upset and kill someone!!! Let’s just sacrifice children to keep men happy!!!
Hannah’s mum
whoops! Entered too early. This is what comes of typing on your lap. My point is that women only do it when they are mentally ill AND there is some other threat to their children they might have concerns about (ie believing they are at risk leaving them behind with their partner). Either way, it is a rare act, not something you read about three times in a week.
The other thing is that men seem do it deliberately and with the intention of harming, either physically or mentally, his ex-partner (ex-partner/her family and friends etc). It is done as an act of defiance; a “fuck you, I’m still in control” thing. I can understand (in a psychotic kind of way) how a person can be so angry that they would want to kill their partner or ex partner. But to kill innocent children just to punish the other party by causing them immeasurable grief is just pure evil.
In this case, though, it seems the man is certifiably insane (although that is and should not be a mitigating factor in the murder of a CHILD).
Robert: I’m a bit puzzled as to why you say that speeding up the fence is a puzzling response, if the bridge was already a favourite suicide spot. There is no doubt that anything that slows down the process by which a person can kill him or herself works to reduce the number of suicides, so fences definitely work, even if they can be climbed over. (There was a good article in the New York Times Magazine last year about it, but it is behind a registration wall now.) What’s wrong with the attitude of “the fence has been needed for years for one reason, it may also have prevented this particularly affecting death too, so just get on with it.”?
As for dealing with domestic violence generally, it is of course an issue that the family law and justice system takes very seriously, and as you suggested to Hannah’s Dad, knee jerk responses could quite possibly increase the number of acts of violence out of a perceived sense of injustice.
I pretty much think, as unpleasant as it sounds, that you have at some point to accept that in a society that values both parents having a continued relationship with their children after separation, it will be impossible to remove absolutely all risk of danger to all children caught in a divorce or separation, and this particular case might (or might not – who knows yet?) have been one of those cases that was effectively unpreventable.
steve from brisbane @ 23, it’s a puzzling response because this case has nothing to do with suicide.
It’s well and good if the fence helps to reduce suicide in the future, but it can’t do a single thing to reduce filicide.
Although Radical Feminists are way off target on most things cases like this remind us that they did see some things correctly about some men.
Hannah’s Mum: No, I’m not. Where there is unambiguous evidence of violence, or a propensity towards it, against children, of course you wouldn’t put a child in such a situation, and I very much doubt courts do.
But I’m not sure a binary division between “violent” and “non-violent” fathers reflects the actual situation. It’s not judging men on what they have done, it’s what they might do, and that’s always going to be a complicated, subjective call and the smartest people in the world are going to get it wrong sometimes. And the consequences of a “false positive” – preventing or severely curtailing contact between a child and their father who wouldn’t have hurt their kids – aren’t negligible either.
Geoff @25 – Could you please give me an example of a ‘Radical Feminist’ (besides Germaine Greer) and something he / she said (direct quote) that was ‘off-target’?
I generally agree with Steve from Brisbane’s last paragraph. Many people don’t appreciate that the Family Law Act in the clearest possible terms states that the best interests of children are the paramount consideration in any decision of the Court, and that in the majority of cases, these best interests are served by a child spending time with both parents. Orders are made in a child’s best interests EVEN IF these Orders could reasonably be perceived as ‘unfair’ to one parent.
I have personally been involved in a number of matters where the Court has (reluctantly) ruled that the conflict between the parents is so entrenched that it would be too disruptive for the child(ren) to spend time with the non-residential parent, therefore in effect ‘rewarding’ the residential parent for fostering intractable conflict.
News reports have said that he had just recently negotiated with his ex-wife to have increased contact in the future with the children.
hannah’s dad here Robert [we have a tag team going but the 'heavy' has bigger fish to fry so you are stuck with the junior partner].
The sad fact is that most cases involving domestic violence and abuse in all its forms do not go to family court. In the sense of a judge actually making a decision.
Most are ‘negotiated’, [definity a misnomer in the vast majority of cases] either outside the Family Court altogether, ie in Family Relationship centres, or within the court system but unlikely to ever receive a judical consideration, a minority of cases receive such attention.
Where violence, plus associated issues, are an integral and dominant aspect of a partnershipthat that has finally broken down, negotiations cannot be on a level field, a result of equals in the dynamic.
And sadly this unequal dynamic is all too frequently unrecognized by the system.
And all too frequently continues, unrecognized and unacknowledged, after separation resulting in large numbers of cases where children are forced by law to be placed into the care of abusers and perpetrators of violence even when in many cases such violence was recognized.
Hannah’s mum here now.
According to the Aust. Institute of Family Studies: Allegations of Family Violence and Child Abuse in Family Law Proceedings (Moloney et al 2007) it is unusual for contact to be denied even when there are serious allegations of abuse. “Orders for overnight stays predominated among contact order cases, whether or not allegations (of violence) were made regardless of the apparent severity or weight of evidence.”
It is not that hard to predict homicidal and abusive behaviour when there has been a history of domestic violence and child abuse in the relationship and most research shows that in cases of familicide there has been such a history. It is the family law system which fails to take into account this history which places women and children at risk. In fact, increasingly women are being penalised by the family law system for raising their concerns of violence and being assessed as “uncooperative” parents.
One third to one half of cases involved in family court action have a history of domestic violence.
Thanks, Hannah’s parents.
That’s the kind of information I was hoping somebody would bring to the discussion, not just my (uninformed) suppositions.
Incidentally, it’s precisely the kind of research you’re referring to that it would be good to talk more about on LP.
You’re welcome Robert.
Unfortunately there is a lot of mis and dis information, myths and fallacies that float around the issues of DV, CSA, Family Court, Family Relationship centres etc and so on.
For too long the discussion has been dominated by fathers’ rights groups and similar, for a decade plus [ring a bell?] policy and paradigm were from the far right, changes to family laws in all sorts of areas, eg sole parent payments, were, and still are largely, seen through a narow prism which acively distorted reality.
Consider the fuss that was necessary before [only] one of two persons, clearly inappropriately appointed originally, was removed from a position of influence viz the committee for mens’ health.
One of the ironies of these issues in Australia is that the right, and the public in general, were and are willing to believe the worst possible imaginable things about indigenous men but the same issues are veiled when the community as a whole is involved.
Part of the reason it all got to this is that some years ago there was ( i believe) a change in the law as to how suicides could be reported in the press. Among conspiracy theorists (some of my friends) this was associated with the recent opening of a casino nearby as apparently there was an increased number of suicides off the West Gate after it opened. It would appear now that the change in the law (to not allow the reporting of suicide in some form) meant that the political pressure from the proleteriat to make the government erect things like suicide fences disappeared. In addition to the terrible sadness asociated with this incident the mind cannot quite fathom the implications for this family (and all those others who have lost loves ones via the bridge) if the conspiracy theorists were right. If someone has other information about this I would be keen to hear it.
A little OT but just to follow-up an earlier comment: IIRC a fence was installed rather quietly and without much fanfare not too long after the Gateway Bridge was completed in Brisbane (circa 1986) as it quickly became a favored spot for suicides.
My point being that the change in the law was because the government was very keen to see that the casino not be seen in bad light, not because they wanted to protect the rights of the deceased or their families.
@Roger re reporting….
Press Council 1998
Maybe this is what you meant?
Among children under age 5 years in the United States who were murdered in the last quarter of the 20th century, 61% were killed by their own parents: 30% were killed by their mothers, and 31% by their fathers (1).
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/9/1578
It’s really disgusting the amount of man-hating that goes on on this site.
roger – with respect – the conspiracy theory re casino is the usual utter bullshit.
The only reliable statistics on suicide are from the Coroners Court and they have always been publically available.
The media reports events they consider will sell papers or get viewers – any conclusions they draw are just “another bloke in the street” nonsense. We would be no worse off at all if there had been no reporting whatsoever of the Westgate Bridge tragedy today.
As a father of a 7 yo girl, I’ve struggled to come to terms with this news over the last 24 hours. I can barely imagine what may have driven this man to loose it so badly that he’d contemplate not just killing his daughter, but in a manner that would surely be horrific for her (hardly a quick, painless death) let alone what damage it has done to her siblings who got ring side seats for the performance.
Was it simply a loose screw? Reports today seem to indicate he looked and behaved “normally” – no one guessed anything wrong. The circumstances offer a hint of premeditation (why at the very top of the bridge, why not half way up, why not simply throw her in front of a truck?) and yet the method is almost surreal. This is no “shoot the kids and then myself” event – this is like … well, throwing out the garbage?
I dunno? Maybe he was running late to get the kids to school and, knowing this would adversely affect his chances of regaining custody, he was starting to panic? Then, as all kids tend to do, they got narky from the long drive (they were apparently driving up from the Great Ocean Road somewhere) and he snapped? But throwing her off a bridge!!! My god man, what were you thinking??!!!
On the topic of the suicide rails, it’s easy enough to see if it’s a knee jerk reaction by checking to see how universal this measure is. For example, how many other tall bridges are in Melbourne (e.g. Bolte Bridge) where suicide is just as likely/prevalent – if they don’t have suicide protection, are they also being “rushed” to have protection fitted?
Suicide is a massive problem.
I’m not sure that the current reporting guidelines are really helpful overall.
I thought that it was also seen as a reason for the shortage of train drivers in Melbourne – it takes a lot of time and money to train the drivers, but it’s not hard to see why they might seek alternative employment after the fact.
Sure, put the fences up, but the bridge was built initially without them.
Was that because the problem of suicides is getting worse, the use of public infrastructure is getting worse or what?
It does seem a little crazy to be wrapping everything in security fences these days.
Funding of social work services that deal with family breakdown is notoriously inadequate. I say this as a teacher in the public high school system and as the partner of a social worker.
Our current government has recently dedicated funding towards protecting commercial real estate speculators from bankruptcy due to the current economic downturn (as The Age recently pointed out, why not hairdressers or mechanics or any other business players?).
Perhaps as a society we dedicate too much government funding to economic players and not enough to social services? I believe we have a fundamentally wrong set of priorities as a society. Until people vote for parties with more progressive policies on these matters, or agitate for changes in the priorities of parties in power, no real change will happen.
I find it interesting that none of the comments I’ve read on this post seem to address the political issues that tragic incidents like this one raise.
Family law seems to bring out the absolute worst in people. When I was a very green young paralegal I remember a father who’d done badly in a custody dispute throwing a heavy stone ashtray at the bloke who ran the firm’s family section. He chucked it so bloody hard that it ‘bullseyed’ the glass behind the lawyer’s head. Thank Christ he missed. Our lawyer finished up under his desk and we then needed half a dozen burly types from security to remove him from the building. Obviously for him the anger radiated outwards, rather than turning inwards. Until then he seemed a perfectly normal client, would say hello to the people in property (where I worked) as he made his way down to the family section.
I remember swearing at that moment that I wouldn’t touch family law with a ten foot pole.
I wish you hadn’t said this , Obviously Obtuse, “I find it interesting that none of the comments I’ve read on this post seem to address the political issues that tragic incidents like this one raise.”
Because this household, my partner mainly of course, has spent years engaging in just about every possible form of political action imaginable to attempt to change some of the more drastic policies of the previous govt. and is currently, as in yesterday and today, involved in political action addressing a range of issues.
Quite frankly the situation in Australia is one of deliberate and wilful negligence by all levels of our society, government, media, churches, NGOs [generally not entirely] etc.
Merely getting people to admit that CSA, DV et al exist is a problem much less changing the paradigm, the lens through these issues are viewed.
There are numerous lobby groups out there working hard, in the past fruitlessly, but their efforts have been largely ignored.
rest assured there is a lot of political agitation occuring, but success is limited.
Just one example.
Collecting collated nation wide statistics for the numbers of women and children killed by ex and current partners has been a high priority for such groups for several years.
Only recently, and you may guess why it is only recent, have govts. agreed to actually collate such figures so that tyhe depth of the problem can be analysed.
Hannah’s Dad, I get the feeling that Obviously Obtuse is pushing a wee bit of a barrow there. Anyone who’d read the thread carefully must have a very narrow definition of ‘politics’ to make a comment like that.
I, for example, have very well-formed views on the gender politics of events like these. But I probably wouldn’t express them here; those discussions are usually derailed immediately by antifeminist trolls. Which is why it’s all the more important that a male commenter should be expressing them; most of the women who read and comment regularly here are automatic targets for said trolldom, but they might listen to you. Oh the irony, etc.
And what’s more, HD, as you hint, the resistance encountered by people like your partner is of course grounded in exactly the same kind of troll-like attitude — ‘Oh it’s just the bloody feminists banging on again, pay it no mind.’ I have encountered exactly this attitude when trying to change policy in a different field. It’s these official attitudes that shape the culture and enable male behaviours of the kind under discussion.
OK, Pavlov’s Cat, Hannah’s Dad, everyone – what should I be reading to inform myself better about domestic violence issues?
I’d like to draw your readership’s attention to a phenomenon known as the Werther Effect (after the Goethe book). Prominent deaths, esp suicides, are correlated with an increase in suicides after media publicity. There would be a significant risk of a copy-cat suicide after so much publicity (I realise this wasn’t a suicide but I believe the risk is still there). I think that the idea of barriers is a good one, although the politicians probably just did it to be seen to be doing something.
Our hospital had a very prominent suicide (the Professor of Psychiatry no less) from the top of the carpark. Two weeks later, a psychiatric inpatient did the same. Barriers went up then.
Points taken, Hannah’s dad and Pavlov’s Cat. HD, I did say comments rather than commenters, though. Will ask partner to respond to Robert Merkel’s request when she can get away from the baby here.
Google/try these Robert for starters:
-Elspeth McInnes writes some good stuff, check out her articles, follow the bibliographies.
-NCSMC http://www.ncsmc.org.au/ncsmc.htm
-Try Regina Graycar’s book for a [limited] legal POV, can’t find it on the bookshelf. ‘Gender and the Law’ IIRC
-DVRCH Victoria are a good mob here’s a link
http://www.austdvclearinghouse.unsw.edu.au/
There another mob with the same key words with some good articles based at Uni of NSW
-WESNet are good even tho’ they are suffering de-funding, in common with most womens’ organizations. here’s a link to their publications index, lots of rotten reading there [well it's good stuff but don't expect to fell warm and fuzzy]
http://www.wesnet.org.au/publications/publicationsindex.htm
That’ll get you started.
Oops I forgot, is there some sort of limit on links per post?
I’ll repeat if necessary.
And Robert….
Thanks for your response.
Hannah’s Dad; thanks for the links.
If there are too many links in a post, it goes into the moderation queue (which is separate from the spam queue). We check it fairly regularly; less so on weekends.
If something doesn’t appear, make a comment (without the links) or email us and we’ll fish it out.
Why do men behave in ways that are violent towards other men, women and even children. A man’s point of view:
1) Drunkenness or off their face on speed – it doesn’t excuse it, but its an explanation.
2) Wanting to exert power over some-one.
3) Compensating for a sense of powerlessness.
4) Socialisation – eg continually watching displays of male aggression on TV, in for example, football codes,some cricket, which in turn is internalised to the point where the guy thinks its okay for these guys to do it so its okay for me to do it.
5) Lack of training for men in coping with emotional problems – some men keep it all in for yonks, then explode, though hopefully that’s not as prevalent these days as it ways.
6) Seeing violence at home as a child, bearing in mind that not all men exposed to childhood violence turn out that way.
7) A refusal to recognise that when a woman says no, she means no, so they get violent to have sex.
If I thought about it long and hard I could probably come up with heaps more. Please, can everyone comment if they wish. (I don’t think its fair if women commenters comment on this they should be labelled femmo-nazis so please can we keep it on track instead of turning it into a feminist v. anti-feminist or gender battle. I’d really like to know what people think causes all this shit, even though the thoughts will only go a small way for all of us stopping it around us.
This short paper by Jenny Mouzos and Catherine Rushforth (from the Australian Institute Of Criminology) presents some statistics on the particular kind of homicide of which this tragic event is one example. According to this paper, in Australia between 1989 and 2002 there were 25 children killed by their parents each year, on average. (In other words, approximately one child every two weeks.) For those interested in gender and the killing of children, in 37 per cent of these homicides the killer was the mother, while in 63 per cent the killer was the father. A majority of parents who kill their children are thus fathers, although it is also true that a very substantial proportion are mothers.
The paper also discusses other kinds of family homicide, such as intimate partner homicide, parricide, and siblicide.
Paul, I don’t think that drunkenness is an explanation. It certainly lowers inhibitions and is a factor in violence. But the violence has to be there waiting to be expressed.
Fair enough, Fine. On reflection I think that’s true most of the time. I was thinking of the circumstances of people who are bad-tempered but not normally physically violent explode into violence. But then again I accept that continual badtemperedness is a form of emotional violence or verbal violence that can be very intimidating.
Tasmania’s anti-domestic violence legisation ‘safe at home’, which has been globally recognised as ‘cutting edge’.
And from this article:
“The legislation is unique in Australia in that it introduces both economic abuse and emotional abuse and intimidation as criminal offences and as grounds for obtaining restraint orders. The Act creates a presumption against bail for alleged perpetrators, requiring the decision-maker to consider the likely effect of release on the safety, wellbeing and interests of the victim or affected child. The premise of the strategy is that the safety of victims is a primary
concern, and that where possible, they should have the choice of remaining in the family home.
Penalties for breaches of orders have been increased and a breach that exposes a child to violence will be considered an aggravating factor in sentencing. Police will be mandated to notify the Child Protection services of any children present
during an incident of family violence and considered at risk. Tasmanian statistics indicate that children are present in -40 per cent of incidents attended by police (Little 2005).”
found here
The key to Tasmania’s legislation is not only its pro- victim approach, but it’s risk assessment, and recognition of a cycle of abuse that leads to homicide or similar.
At to the case at hand, it’s not often I feel compassion for parents who murder their children, but what we’ve got to go on suggests this man had some sort of a psychotic break.
RE: suicide barriers – I don’t think it’s an odd response. Here in Tasmania someone throws themself off the Tasman bridge about once a week. Suicide barriers should be mandatory on every major bridge, they are very well known targets for people wanting to end their life. With this particular case, no it might not have stopped him killing her, but it would have a) given more time for people to intervene and perhaps prevent the incident if they had been present or b) at least he might not have subjected a large number people to the incredible trauma of witnessing such an incident, cold comfort though that is for that poor little girl.
Yes it’s a political response, but if it gets long-overdue barriers on the bridge, good.
No words can describe the horror of this tragedy. But I felt Jon Faine & Brumby, when discussing it the following morning and using language like “the stresses on families” were skirting around the reality that the father caused this tragedy and that maybe the debate should be around services for separated fathers. There have been enough other similar, local cases to consider mandatory psychological health evaluations for fathers wanting partial custody (does this already occur? i doubt it). The man had just been given increased custody, for heavens sake.
I find it hard to accept that this tragedy couldn’t have been prevented.
Think this SMH article hits the nail on the head (sorry for lack of formatting).
“In response to strong lobbying from men’s groups, the Howard government changed family law, set up Family Relationship Centres, funded men’s health services, and advocated a less adversarial approach to custody disputes. Some critics believe the changes went too far in men’s favour and underplayed the dangers some women and children faced.”
Cue the anti-feminist trolls, i suppose – though this thread has been mercifully fairly free of the ‘women do it do’ line of argument from the macho mens brigade (yes they do, but in much smaller numbers, the power imbalance – in every sense – is why women and children need protection) . Still, it’s risible that on a purportedly leftish blog we have to be cautious about openly discussing feminist issues, such as the vulnerability of some women and kids to male violence.
As for the proposed Bridge barriers, think it’s a good idea. In this case it was an impulsive act (don’t think those words are strong enough but anyway) given his subsequent, uncontrollable fits. But how many more fathers are going to kill their kids in this country before their custodial rights are more carefully scrutinised?
Fine I don’t think its a simple as lowering inhibitions, I think that some people’s personalities do change under the influence of alcohol and drugs – its not always to a less inhibited state either.
Things like custody (or less of), AVOs, even jail are just stop gap measures though – they buy a bit of time. But as we’ve seen in other cases where someone is intent on harming another person and they don’t care about consequences of jail or harm to themselves it pretty much impossible to stop.
Paul @ 50 – I think your point 5 is still a major factor. That and lack of social networks amongst men that they can rely on for emotional support, especially after several years of marriage.
There are about 70 suicides each year in Tasmania.
Suicide by drowning, jumping from a high place etc (classed as Other) is less than 7% Australia wide. That is about 5 each year in Tasmania for all the Other category
It is unlikely there is a suicide by jumping from the Tasman Bridge “about once a week”
Matilda (and Hannah’s parents), you appear to be suggesting that the Howard government’s move towards less adversarial forms of dealing with the consequences of separation is actually a bad thing. Funny, I always viewed alternative dispute resolution as left-y sort of thing, and thought it odd that it was introduced by a conservative government.
But surely, in principle, it’s a good thing to encourage (or force) people into negotiation before litigation is undertaken. Also, I had a quick look at the Aust Institute of Family Studies 2007 report mentioned by Hannah’s Dad, and I can’t see that it actually makes any inherent criticism of the Family Relationship centres and the general philosophy of trying to make the process less adversarial.
Is there any evidence that more abuse of kids is happening because of these changes? (Including the presumption towards shared care?)
I can accept that there might be a view that the Centres are not as good as they could be at recognizing parents who are a danger, but seriously, given the numbers of women who have killed kids too, (bigger than I realised until I read this thread!) surely the centres and system shouldn’t focus on psychological screening of fathers alone.
Although I have not read every page of the report, I must also say (at the risk of being call a troll, I suppose), that the Moloney 2007 study actually acknowledges the ambiguities and difficulties of dealing with domestic violence allegations to a much greater degree than it seems Hannah’s parents want to acknowledge.
The above is wrong. Should be:
There are about 150 suicides or less each year in Tasmania.
Suicide by drowning, jumping from a high place etc (classed as Other) is less than 7% Australia wide. That is about 11 or less each year in Tasmania for all the Other category
It is unlikely there is a suicide by jumping from the Tasman Bridge “about once a week”
Lesson: Never let the work experience graduate publish data without it being checked up the line.
If you mean Yobbo’s link at #36, for a start it’s an American site and its first sentence, which Yobbo apparently didn’t read, says that the ratio of women to men who kill their children is higher in the US than in other developed countries. I know there are people who believe we are an American colony and God knows there is plenty of reason to do so — but those are American stats.
Most of the women who kill their children are either in post-natal depression or psychosis, or in a state of desperation about their inability to look after them, often because the fathers have buggered off. Men mostly kill them in order to punish their mothers.
This is not about ‘man-hating’, just about observing what happens. (This man-hater, for example, has been in the hottest room in the house in the middle of a heatwave for the last hour and a half baking her elderly father a birthday cake, or she would have come back to this thread sooner.) But it’s a simplistic essentialist move to reduce it to statistics in any case. We’re talking about what happens to children in a society that privileges and punishes different kinds of behaviours in different sexes, and the extreme cases end up like this one.
Matilda, I should have made it clearer that I don’t blame LP as such at all for the commenters it attracts. The only alternative would be to make it a closed shop and I doubt whether many of the people who blog, comment and/or read here would want that. As for ‘leftish’ — I don’t know about you, but it’s been a very long time (again, this comment doesn’t refer to LP) since I last made the assumption that ‘left’ would necessarily equate with ‘feminist’.
FXH – a) they’re aren’t all successful (ie some are stopped from jumping, some don’t kill themselves) and b) I’m going by what the police tell me, so it’s anecdotal, but I do know that they try and keep the numbers out of the papers etc.
regardless of whether the police are telling me porkies or not, I think you get the point that putting suicide barriers on major bridges has merit.
Yeh, I do not see it as such a puzzling policy response. Pollies, like the rest of us, are appalled and then left feeling impotent when events such as this happen. Build a suicide barrier or a net when someone is taken for shark sushi. That’s the go.
There is a little bit of Holden Caulfield in the Brumby, I reckon.
I guess it’s better than not building a barrier. Adelaide’s Myer Centre used to have a sort of open atrium effect in the middle till someone threw himself over the rail on Level 4, which as you might imagine they had a hard time hushing up. (Textbook case, BTW: male, 32, drug-induced psychosis.) Their (very thought-through, I thought) response was to put up more or less horizontal barriers like shade sails at different levels. They look quite pretty, create interesting spatial effects, and would softly break any fall or jump, although you could probably still hurt yourself if you really wanted to.
Yeah, there is a Jekyll-and-Hyde thing with some men (and women) that leads to shockingly bad personality changes and violence, but I think these are a particular type of alcoholic. From what I’ve been told by a couple of women who have been bashed by men, speed is even worse. I was thinking of the bloke who isn’t alcholic but still gets violent on the piss.
Chris (a different one)
I guess I’m lucky. I move in a circle of men and women where verbal violence is not tolerated, even in the most intense political discussions where we might strongly disagree with each other on points of detail but not overall ideology. Apart from the fact we’d just consider it plain pointless.And where men recognise the value of being constructively emotional.
Whether true or not, popular mythology has established the West Gate Bridge as the favoured place of spectacular suicide in Melbourne.
I imagine the reputation of the bridge serves as a spur for a small number of impulse suicides. Barriers would prevent the bridge from being used for that purpose.
Where was Melbourne’s mythical jumping place before the West Gate Bridge was built?
I imagine every major city has a mythical place of self-destruction (Golden Gate Bridge in SF, South Heads in Sydney). And if all those places are fenced behind barriers then new places will be found.
There comes a point when the costs of prevention become too burdensome, especially when prevention merely changes the location, not the fact.
It didn’t have one when the Westgate Bridge was being planned, Katz, except perhaps the ICI building at the top of Spring Street, opened in 1959. But the risk was identified in the planning. Putting up suicide barriers has been talked about for more than thirty years and was promised twenty years ago. It is disgraceful that they are not already in place.
You are right in one respect. If they don’t suicide from Westgate Bridge they will go elsewhere. However committting suicide off the bridge is not an impulse decision. It is a very large and, for most people in Melbourne, remote location. There has to be some considerable thought in deciding to go there so it’s not a matter of impulse.
That’s why I said “a small number”.
In the most recent case, it may well have been an impulsive act. The defendant lived and worked in Hawthorn, many kilometres away from the WGB. Unusually, he was driving over the bridge that fatal morning because he had taken his children to the coast to escape the heat wave.
Did the defendant set off from the coast with the intention of killing at least one of his children and/or perhaps himself? Or did the idea pop into his mind when the bridge hove into sight?
We may or may not be told. And the story we are told may or may not be true.
I seem to recall a rash of jumpers off the University of Melbourne’s Redmond Barry Building in the late 1960s.
And, famously, a woman self-immolated in the University of Melbourne’s Law Quad in 1970. Thankfully, no one emulated her.
A hard analysis there, but a fair one. We may never know the truth for the defendant may not know it himself. It is just overwhelmingly sad and beyond the limits of our understanding.
Exactly, which is why the prevention science literature distinguishes between interventions that target ‘proximal’ factors (broadly speaking, things in the immediate environment) and ‘distal’ factors (more upstream, cultural or societal factors). Targeting ‘proximal’ factors (such as the accessibility of high places) would appear to be cheaper and simpler than addressing the infinitely more complex matters of mental health, economics, social connectedness and gender relations, but as this comment suggests, this appearance is somewhat illusory.
All this to say that while, yes, building a barrier is better than not building a barrier, it is hardly the best long term strategy for reducing the suicide rate (or preventing incidents such as the one that prompted this thread).
The defendant could have drowned himself and/or his children in Bass Strait, where he spent the last weekend of his daughter’s life. Yet he didn’t.
Either the thought hadn’t occurred to him or he was attracted by the performative nature of throwing his daughter off the WGB.
Because of its legendary status the WBG is the main stage for making a public statement.
Some years ago, a chap parked his car on the WGB and held a gun to his own head. This had the effect of paralysing traffic flow for hours and the consequence of Melbourne talkback radio being deluged with suggestions that the chap should either be allowed to shoot himself or be shot by the police in order to facilitate commuter and business traffic.
The WGB can also be seen as a symbol of the callousness of Melbourne culture.
What you say is probably true, Katz. I’ll just repeat what I said above.
Let us wait until the appropriate enquiries are made.
Fine re:
I disagree in that it’s much more complex. Latent violence is present in all primates as an evolutionary defence mechanism. Take protection of a young chimp, (by its mother or father) against other species as an example. Problem is for uneducated, unsocialised, (or improperly socialised=uneducated) males of the human species in particular, alcohol releases that violence and the moronic males equate the “uppity” female as a threat at some primitive subconscious (evolutionary) level I’d suggest; and having (generally) superior physical power enables that violence.
It’s primaeval behaviour, for which the proof (for me at least) rests largely in the disbelief of so many perpetrators when shown the brief of evidence photos depicting the injuries: they cannot believe they’ve inflicted those injuries (hence the initial not guilty plea). I’d classify these as Class B (slightly less culpable arguably but not necessarily in law) morons, partially brain dead due to excessive alcohol abuse. The more “primaeval” of the two categories perhaps.
[A minority of offenders have sick explanations, the Class "A" violent morons, alcoholically fuelled but with more than one remaining memory cell: "If she hadn't said that, I wouldn't have belted her" and "She asked for it!"]
I’ve said it before: take alcohol and drugs out of the equation and I estimate 90% of crime will evaporate. And 95+% specifically of domestic violence will disappear.
Alcohol abuse is the simple explanation.
Violence is always there waiting to be expressed by all of us. Some of the people who most vocally abhor violence are in fact its worst and most frequent perpetrators.
Peter, lawyers and medical workers (particularly frontline) understandably often preference intoxicants as the precipitating factor and yes they are a huge and growing problem. But it doesn’t wash as a universal explanation for wanton one-on-one violence.
How do you explain the violence of under five year olds? Under 10 year olds? It is only their relative lack of physical strength and wit and parental denial and protection that saves this demographic from the moral and philosophical scrutiny they warrant
And the corollary of the above is criminal female violence, which is probably about 1:3 to male violence in my little patch. Alcohol again, and proportional but identical lack of insight to recognise it as causative of unlawful behaviour.
Without in any way intending to apportion blame, one of my thoughts has been: what (if anything) did the four year old daughter say, or represent. to her father. in the moments before he killed her?
I never said it was FF. In the case of the child in question, the father appears to have severe mental issues. He will probably be found not fit to plead and if so will be committed to a mental institution. Question is, with the dearth of funding for mental health, expecting the criminal justice system to sort out the mess is unrealistic.
The last “one on one” category for violence, in the trilogy of mad drunk, bonkers and others are normally sane people who for whatever reason, jealousy, greed, lust, power whatever, commit violent acts.
Agreed, then.
On a cheerier note:
What if, instead of just a suicide barrier, there was a kind of metal mesh tunnel on each side (therefore making it impossible to jump off) with BIKE PATHS in them???
How cool would that be? And useful too.
“…normally sane people who for whatever reason, jealousy, greed, lust, power whatever, commit violent acts.”
To press the point, yes, and this begins in childhood. It is where adults learn how to be violent and for much the same reasons.
People are very weird. For example, a young woman I work with, about 27, second generation Greek, degree in Economics, still living at home, quite nice and “cool”, and all that, commented disinterestedly in a casual tone when I asked for her reaction to this that it was “slack” that this man threw his four year old daughter off the West Gate Bridge as he was driving them to school one morn.
Is this a linguistic deficit, or a imaginative, emotional, ethical one? Or what?
That would be lovely Helen, but from memory (I used to know this bridge very well) there isn’t the space on either side of it for a tunnel for bike riders.
Bugger.
Perhaps some add-on could be engineered?
The legal reality is that a 10 year old cannot be held responsible in the criminal justice system for a crime. It’s a very old principle called doli incapax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doli_incapax
Well, Peter, if we confused the law and legal realities with the sum of acquired and necessary human knowledge, we’d be in an even sorrier state than we are? No?
FF see “Jurisprudence” for some philosophical underpinnings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudence
Ok, thanks. Why shouldn’t we stay in your comfort zone?
I still have the slogan ‘working families’ in my head, and it makes me wonder how many ‘working families’ don’t actually work…as in they simply don’t function. I know, I know…the working families thing is meant to relate to employment rather than functionality, but still…it seemed to me that when Rudd used that phrase he was referring to two parents + kids.
Now,I grew up in what was, at the time, regularly described as a ‘broken home’ – there was not much broken in my home environment, and I’ve always found the phrase rather insulting. Now in my adulthood, as a single woman, I find the phrase ‘working family’ just as problematic, and problematic for the people it is meant to apply to.
I find myself wondering if the politicisation of ‘family’ contributes to some negative outcomes for our communities? Does the tendency to describe single parent families as ‘broken’ and two-parent families as ‘working’ create a problem for those that confront the reality that their families simply aren’t working? ie: to appropriate the vernacular of the web, does it = EPIC FAIL.
She’s my daughter. She belongs to me. You can’t have her. And if I can’t either, then no one will.
I reckon the way to prevent such tragedies in future is to fit all kids with airbags. While the letting the air out of the concept that all families must be based on some TV ad norm.
Behemoth: “She’s my daughter. She belongs to me. You can’t have her. And if I can’t either, then no one will.”
That’s putting the daughter central to his feelings, rather than her mother, his former wife. I wonder if that is really true.
Well, the things you can learn from reading Tim Blair. He notes that a mother killed herself and her baby by jumping off the bridge last June.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23812118-2862,00.html
Robert: are you starting to reconsider your initial puzzlement?:)
No.
As noted, the barrier might be a good thing, particularly in the case of suicides. But if I were looking to reduce the rate of murdered children, it’d hardly be the place I’d start.
FF,
yeah, I’ve also found myself wondering what the kid was saying as he got ready to chuck her off the bridge. One would have thought that would be enough to tug at the heartstrings. Or maybe it all happened so quickly she didn’t have time to say anything.
Newspaper reports say that the girl was limp and wasn’t responding to what was going on. Hopefully, she was drugged and unconscious, so unaware of what was happening. Of course, that makes it sound as though it may have been premeditated.
Paul B, that question is highly pertinent to the question of what led up to this. The initial reports had witnesses saying the child was limp and unresistant as he carried her to and lifted her over the side. Either she had no idea what was about to happen, or she was unconscious. The latter would preclude the idea of his having ‘just snapped’.
I guess the motto ‘Do the thing that can be done’ is what’s behind proposals for a barrier. It’s easier, cheaper and faster than the massive societal change that would have to happen to change these kinds of behaviours. We would all have to be living a different way and believing different things. Personally I’d like to know what the man who drove his three boys into a dam and drowned them to punish his wife a few Father’s Days ago is thinking when he reads about this latest one.
Sorry Fine, comments crossed. Great minds, etc.
I think this incident is going to be full of unanswered questions. As is the Farquarhson case (the guy who drove his car into the dam). Apparently, his ex-wife still says he’s innocent.
Here’s a related issue that is worthy of attention too, in light of comments by several here about the Family Law system. From The Australian this morning comes a story of a mother who has fled the country with her child, citing “bias” on the part of the court since Howard changed the laws. What’s more, according to the article:
“Her move was not unprecedented: although there have been some high-profile cases of men leaving Australia with their children – such as in the case of Canadian mother Melissa Hawach, whose two children were taken to Lebanon by their Sydney-based father and freed by mercenaries – it is overwhelmingly the mother who flees.”
The article: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24994017-601,00.html
It’s been interesting to follow up this thread – thanks particularly to Hannah’s parents for their contribution and links.
The policy and legal settings that are intended to deal with domestic violence are critical and need to be questioned. I take Aussiesmurf’s point (@18) that Family Courts do not have capacity for psychological or psychiatric counselling and that funding constraints prevent identification of a mental health issues for some months. System reform is clearly necessary to prevent harm to women and children.
I strongly suspect that mental illness has played a particular role in this case and that a sophisticated multidisciplinary response is appropriate. I am not equating domestic violence with mental illness but suggesting that this may have been a case where an acute episode of mental illness aggravated the situation. Dr Elspeth McInnes (School of Education, Hawke Institute, UniSA) has examined case studies where mental illness was involved in family violence involving the death of a child, System Failure and Children at Risk: when family law, mental illness and family violence come together. Dr McInness recommends changes to type of evidence that must be considered by the Family Court (previous episodes of mental illness and its impact on the family, for instance) and that mental health workers prepare child care plans for patients being discharged after an Involuntary Treatment Order (currently the case in Queensland). Basically, it is a problem that mental health services treat adult patients without regard for their children and their parenting context and that family law pays insufficient attention to the impact of mental illness.
I’m the partner of a man with bipolar disorder (manic depression). One of the reasons his (private sector) treatment as worked so well is that I have been closely involved and consulted and that his psychiatrist takes into consideration his family context and relationships when treating him. I have had occasion to dread the thought that my partner may have an acute episode that involves him with police, the public health system or others. The health, law and education systems do not yet respond well to people with mental illness.
Adetailed review of Vicria’s family violence laws with suggestions for reform was completed in 2006
http://www.lawreform.vic.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/Law+Reform/Home/Completed+Projects/Family+Violence/LAWREFORM+-+Review+of+Family+Violence+Laws+-+Report
A summary is here:
http://www.lawreform.vic.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/Law+Reform/Home/Completed+Projects/Family+Violence/LAWREFORM+-+Review+of+Family+Violence+Laws+-+Report+Summary
I understand that many of the recommendations were legislated during 2008.
a detailed review of Victoria’s…. (sorry)
It does seem that this father had in mind to throw all over the bridge. Perhaps himself as well.
The overwhelming majority of people with a mental illness are law abiding ethical people. Even those with some of the most debilitating social symptoms arising from severe acute psychosis, depression or schizophrenic episodes generally do not kill people or rob banks.
Just because people are bad does not mean they are mad. Being mad does not make you bad. But some mad people are bad and violent even when they are not mad and are bad and violent even when they are mad.
Mental illness does not usually cause people to do bad things. Nor should it excuse most bad actions.
There are a very small minority of people who experience a mental illness with delusions so strong as to be almost completely detached from reality. A mother might have for the last year firmly been of the view that Jesus was talking to her and that her children were inhabited by Satan and that the only thing to save the world would be to kill them. These cases have happened but they are rare enough. In these cases courts clearly take into account the truely diminished responsibility and sentenec accordingly.
Without commenting on the Westgate case specifically -I believe it is a slur on people with a mental illness to suggest that because a person is depressed and anxious and upset about court decisions that the “mental illness caused them to do it”
Hundreds of thousands of people with debilitating mental illnesses get depressed, lose custody of kids and have court decisions go against them. They don’t murder or maim.
FXH, you are right to point out that many, many people with a mental illness do not physically harm or kill others. Figures from the Mental Illness Fellowship of Victoria show that 0.8% of all people with a mental illness will kill another person, and always during a psychotic episode.
I have not suggested that ‘mental illness made him do it’ but I have suggested that in this particular case and according to witness accounts of his demeanor and behaviour, it may have been a contributing factor. I think there is a prima facie case for the integration of a history of mental illness into the evidence heard by the Family Court (as recommended by Dr McInnes).
It is important to maintain a distinction between the psycho-social factors in domestic violence and the symptoms and consequences of psychiatric (mental) illness. It can be easily blurred but there is still a difference.
frog – I wasn’t directing anything at you – in fact I hadn’t read your bit when I tapped in my mild rant.
I would add though that the ability of the mental health profession to predict violence is not much chop. There isn’t some weird sekret scientific proven way that counsellors, psychiatrists can predict violence or murder.
In fact in my experience the best at predicting are the cops and as with most things the pattern of past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour.
“0.8% of all people with a mental illness will kill another person”
That seems very high? You sure that’s not “people with a history of diagnosed psychotic episodes”? Alternatively, that it may include suicide?
*ahem*
FXH – I know there are pretty strict legal definitions of whether someone is legal competent and medical definitions for various mental illnesses, but with events so extreme where people kill their children and themselves I really struggle to comprehend how they can be completely sane.
“completely sane”
Frankly, I know only a bare handful of people this description would fit.
So we muddle through life, with varying levels of sanity, seem to survive, occasionally enjoy something; treat others lovingly or not; but only a tiny number ever murder or suicide. Somehow it never occurs to the vast majority, or they control the deadly impulse.
Nowt queer as folk.
chris – one might say that anyone who kills or maims or abuses a child must be “insane” or “mad” or “sick”..
I’m more inclined to think of evil these days.
FDB @ 109 – maybe I should have written “even vaguely sane”
FXH @ 111 – perhaps its the killing themselves bit which makes me question their sanity rather than it just being evil. Its not like they find themselves in an state they can’t cope with (eg facing a long jail sentence) and decide to kill themselves. They commit these crimes knowing there is no escape and do it anyway.
Even if it can be written off as vengeance against their partners, what sort of sane person values their own life so poorly?
I think the main reason I bring this is up is wondering whether extra support services for separating families would help reduce the occurrence of murder/suicides. If they’re just evil then its not going to help, if its people who just snap (even if its not in a legally protected way) then it might.
chris – I think there is plenty of good rational (and even not so rational) reasons a person might suicide.
To an extent to live or die might be said to be the only real decison we have to make. Each day.
Just to clarify the number I quoted on violence during psychotic episodes: 25% of the population have some form of mental illness (this includes depression). 3% of the population will experience a psychotic episode. Of that number, 0.8% will behave so violently as to cause the death of another person. So, we’re talking about 0.8% of 3%. This does make the figure small when considering the whole population.
The presentation of psychotic episodes or other acute episodes of mental illness can be expected during highly stressful situations (this is the stress-vulnerability model). That is, a pre-existing mental illness will be exacerbated or a genetic predisposition towards a particular mental illness will be triggered by a highly stressful event. The experience and outcomes of each episode will be mediated – for better or worse – by the person’s family and social context, their own beliefs and attitudes, and the presence or lack of supporting services. According to this model, we can reasonably expect to identify a higher than normal rate of episodes mental illness in those involved in Family Court proceedings.
Additionally, each period of mental illness has a prodromal stage when the behaviour, mood and disposition of the person affected will change (withdrawal, changes in hygiene and other recognised symptoms). Even the professionals will say that it can be difficult to detect and then predict accurately what the course of the episode will be. But there are recognised symptoms that trained cousnellors or mental health workers can detect and flag the need for positive intervention. There’s more information here at the Mental Illness Fellowship of Victoria.
This is a rather long winded way of saying that the issues of family breakdown and domestic violence that are a fact of life for the Family Court, and we can expect some people to experience mental illness. It is possible to detect and it is possible to intervene positively. The only hitch is that it needs resources and service coordination.
And that is the kind of policy response that I’d like to see.
“3% of the population will experience a psychotic episode. Of that number, 0.8% will behave so violently as to cause the death of another person. So, we’re talking about 0.8% of 3%.”
Phew! You had me worried there, that either someone’s doing some really shit stats work or that I should be in mortal fear of nearly 1 in 100 people. I don’t know which would be worse.
For me, it’s stats. Shit or otherwise!
It’s just human nature as expressed in Australian political culture. We’re hard-wired with the notion that the government is some kind of quasi-deity able to solve all problems. Perhaps this stems from starting out as a jail.
.
But anything bad happens and the response is someone (aka the government) should do something. You can counter that with a reasonable response and you’ll be asking for hostility: Oh I suppose you want little girls thrown off bridges! Or some similar such shit.
.
Politicians of course love tragedies. They can express horror and commiserate and guarantee fast tracked suicide barriers.
.
It provides them with an opportunity to masquerade as humans.