The Daily Beast and PBS Tackle the Vilification of the Mentally Ill

Jeannette Halton-Tiggs didn't shed a tear in the courtroom last year when her mentally ill son, Timothy, 29, was locked up for life for gunning down a Cleveland police officer in cold blood. 

She wanted to cry, but didn't dare, for fear that as the mother of a man perceived to be a monster, she would offend the family of the murdered officer. Or maybe she was just cried out.

The vilification of Jared Loughner, who killed six people in Tucson and left U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords severely injured, prompted Halton-Tiggs to share her story with The Daily Beast's Mansfield Frazier.  She asks what it will take for families and society at large to face the issues of the dangerously mentally ill.

Loughner's family has been largely silent on their son's mental health issues. But Halton-Tiggs's experience with her son, diagnosed in childhood with a severe form of paranoid schizophrenia, is instructive. Before Timothy turned 18, his mother had some measure of control over him. But all that changed when he came of age and periodically refused to take his medication. She describes nine years of "pure hellish nightmare," as her adult son fell apart.

"The reality is, no one can be as deranged as my son, or as Jared Loughner apparently is, without many people being aware of his deteriorating mental condition—yet seemingly no one moved to force him into treatment," she said. "The burning question following a mind-boggling incident of this kind should be: 'Why do we, as a society, allow known dangerously mentally ill individuals to make their own decisions in regard to receiving treatment?' "

It's a powerful story. And to drive home her point that an estimated 40,000 seriously mentally ill people in the United States are roaming the streets untreated, the Daily Beast created a media gallery of mentally ill people who have been convicted of heinous crimes.

At the other end of the spectrum, PBS takes an in-depth look at the issue by resurrecting the 2009 Fred Friendly Seminar, Minds on the Edge: Facing Mental Illness.  Updated and smartly repegged to the Tucson tragedy, the seminar website is a multi-platform and interactive examination of tough legal, ethical and policy issues, made even more poignant by personal stories of the mentally ill and their families.

A compelling video forum features Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, bioethicist Arthur Caplan, psychiatrist and public policy expert Thomas Simpatico in conversation about ethics, the law and the raw experiences faced by families of the mentally ill. In-depth features explore the science of mental illness, current policies, the criminal justice system and innovative solutions. The seminar isn't all talk: it also provides a framework for citizen participation and community meetings around these critical issues.

A segment on the seminar aired on the Jan. 18 edition of the PBS NewsHour; the original program will be broadcast on most PBS affiliates this week. Check local listings – or visit the Minds on the Edge website to view the entire package.