Charged with crime while manic and in-patient

[torycf]

So, in February 2012 my then 15 year old was hospitalized. He is bipolar and over the month of February ended up being hospitalized 3 separate times. He was having some mania and during one of the stays he was apparently hanging out in the patient tv area with another boy and a girl. He and the other boy were saying sexual things and he touched the girl inappropriately (he touched her vaginal area outside of her pants with his foot). This was in a monitored area and the girl apparently never said anything to the staff. We never knew anything about it.

December of last year we were contacted by several detectives from the police department of the city where the hospital is located. The girl did not say anything to the staff while inpatient but told a therapist in an after care program who then reported it to CPS who reported it to the police. The police then put it on the back burner because of a backlog of work and the girl being unavailable for an interview. When they finally contacted us, they first talked to my son alone without a parent present. He basically said that yes he did those things...

I went to the hospital and they said they had no record of the event happening. The girl did not want my son charged because she said " they were just messing around". Her father however is a police officer in another city and pushed for the charges.

He ended up being sentenced to one year formal probation, community service, enrollment in a sex offenders program for a year ( he has to attend once a week for an hour and a half and we are required to attend a parents group during this time) and enrollment in a once a week drug and alcohol program even though this isn't an issue for him. There are other various requirements as well...

What just blows my mind is that while I know what he was doing was inappropriate and he admits to it- he was hospitalized for being manic and impulsive and what he did was something that he knows is wrong and he would never have done if he wasn't manic . Basically, he is being punished for his disability or rather doing something while under the effects of his disability.

 

[helpangel]

There is something seriously wrong with this system, my friend got 5 years probation and her kid was in state juvi age 15-21 because courts believed rantings of a 13yo who was full blown psychosis.

I understand they can't have different rules for mentally ill people, but courts need to have the ability to "read between the lines" and figure out what really happened or how severe the infraction really was (if people doing 24hr supervision didn't know it happened)

When Angel got arrested for shoplifting a couple years ago it was one of the best things that could have happened to her. Didn't matter I had been begging her psychiatrist to check lithium levels over a month or that she was back into the psychiatric hospital a week after her arrest, she stole she spent night in jail she spent next year going to probation and it cost her over $1000.

It was a wake up call for her that she will be held accountable for her actions; that probably is what kept her out of prison and alive. I'm sorry they went over board charging your son but hopefully this is a wake up call for him sexual misconduct of any kind is not tolerated even in people who aren't thinking straight. Thank God he isn't listed for life on sex offender registry like my friends son is.

Nancy

 

[pasajes4]

There is a huge problem with the legal system concerning the mentally ill. His punishment could have been much worse. The psychiatric hospital needs to review their policy on allowing kids this age to be co-ed. They tend not to focus on their recovery. The hormones start to kick in.

 

[1905]

Well, what was she is in the hospital for? My son was in a psychiatric hospital when he followed a boy to his room and beat him up. The psychiatric hospital called me and said his parents may press charges, both kids were 15. The boy totally instigated it and he was also in there for 30 extra days because nobody would come to get him- meaning his parents- and the psychiatric hospital was trying to figure out what to do with him. The point is, the boy had his own issues, which caused him to get beat up. This girl, maybe instigated, maybe something else, maybe she wants to upset her parents at this late date. The place does not have documentation. What else is there to say?