End of the road

I suspect that every parent of a profoundly mentally ill child had nightmares following your publication [BDN, Aug. 30] of the trial which resulted in Martha Shave being sentenced to the Maine women’s prison. One of the things about living in Maine is that most of us who have seriously mentally ill family members come to know about other severely mentally ill individuals such as is surely the case with Martha Shave. Really, have we reached the point in our state where the corrections system is the end of the road for severely mentally ill people?

The sentencing of Ms. Shave may in fact be a death sentence for a person like her with her long history of self-destructive acts. One can only hope that the unnamed superior court judge heard the complete story of this young woman’s life prior to passing sentence on her. One may hope that Ms. Shave’s unnamed defense counsel was properly prepared to set the context of her act, one which occurred while she was a patient at one of our state institutions. Really, is it arson for a mentally ill patient in a mental hospital to go to one of the few places he or she might be alone, i.e., the bathroom, strip naked, then try to set a fire which was likely meant as a way of ending his or her life (which would fit some of this young woman’s past history of self-destructive acts)?

Perhaps in our rush for the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill in Maine we have failed to provide appropriately safe places for our most profoundly mentally ill citizens. It is very difficult to beleive that the women’s prison will be such a place for Ms. Shave. May we pray for a miracle in the case of this dreadfully ill young woman. William L. England Bangor