Chronic stress, economics, crime and social order

Many of the cases I handle as a criminal defense lawyer in Florida are rooted in chronic stress. Consider:

• a couple has chronic stress related to money, and they fight and argue until a real or fabricated case of domestic violence erupts
• someone making over $20/hour in 2007 goes through a long period of unemployment, and by 2014, is barely employed and making less than half of what they made seven years ago. They begin drinking heavily and ultimately get charged with DUI.
• broke his entire adult life, a desperate twenty-five year old male robs a convenience store.
• a teenager watches his parents lose their jobs, their home, and barely survive on the margins, living minimum wage paycheck to paycheck, desperately poor and with no hope for a better tomorrow. Sinking into depression and anxiety, a gun is taken to school and, you can figure out the rest.

This is America today.

There is a mass homicide such as the shootings at Sandy Hook roughly every two weeks. As awful as such events are, isn't there are part of you that doesn't get surprised by this?

Moralists are quick to prescribe nonsensical quick fixes with one line sentences of pithy rhetoric, usually some form of childish black and white thinking which does little more than display a profound level of ignorance about the human condition.

Reality can be brutal: people without hope are dangerous. When their brains are scanned and the images are compared with healthy, normal range brain images, people who have been under chronic stress have negative changes to both the physical structure and operational parameters of their most important organ in the human body. The organ that controls human behavior. Or not.

When PTSD is factored in, the result can be terrifying. When all forms of mental illness are factored in, as a society, we have to confront uncomfortable truths:

1) The people who are completely insane (what I loosely and unscientifically refer to as the "I think I am Jesus" category) they are not the problem. When someone is babbling nonsense claiming to be the messiah, discerning mental illness requires little skill simply because it is so obvious. And they are not the biggest threat. The ones that fly under the radar and appear to be somewhat normal, yet eccentric are extremely dangerous. Punishment does not deter them. Think of the Boston Bomber suspect who made headlines (again) today with the announcement the government is seeking the death penalty. How well did that threat of punishment work?

2) We are our brotherss (and our sisters') keeper. Unless we embrace and support a total breakdown of social order, mass homicides, bombings, Santa Slayers and a whole host of simply awful social ramifications.

Fortunately, we can solve these seemingly intractable problems with an investment in our people, despite the unpopularity of talking about income inequality and the fact that crime is a medical problem. It has been reported that 400 Americans have a level of wealth equal to the lower 150 million in our country, and worldwide, that 85 people have half of the world's wealth. Quick point: when was the last time you heard about a billionaire losing it and committing a mass homicide? How about a robbery?

You haven't. It doesn't happen.

In America, when half of the country has no realistic way to compete for a bigger slice of the economic pie, and the slice they have is getting smaller, it is easy to foresee that more mental breakdowns will occur.

Along with Greece, Spain, Ukraine and a host of other nations, Britain had a complete mental breakdown due to the chronic stress of economic anxiety in 2011: do we want that to happen here?

Decidedly not. Preachy moralisms are no answer. We either care for our brothers and sisters with our economic, social, criminal, medical, and taxation policies or we live with the consequences of our continuing failure to do so.