Buy used: $9.94

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery Tuesday, January 31 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Or fastest delivery Friday, January 27

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by Zoom Books Company

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Author

E. Fuller Torrey

The Insanity Offense: How America's Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens 1st Edition

by E. Fuller Torrey (Author)

74 ratings

3.8 on Goodreads

225 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$9.99

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$9.94

$19.99

$2.36

Paperback

"Please retry"

$15.29

$14.32

$4.40

Kindle
$9.99 Read with Our Free App
Hardcover
$9.94

27 Used from $2.36 1 New from $19.99
Paperback
$11.67 - $15.29

19 Used from $4.40 17 New from $14.32

A leading expert on mental illness outlines the tragic consequences of deinstitutionalization and sounds the call for reform.

Beginning in the 1960s in the United States, scores of patients with severe psychiatric disorders were discharged from public mental hospitals. At the same time, activists forced changes in commitment laws that made it impossible to treat half of the patients that left the hospital. The combined effect was profoundly destructive. Today, among homeless persons, at least one-third are severely mentally ill; among the incarcerated, at least one-tenth. Of those individuals living in our communities, many are the victims of violent crime. Other untreated individuals commit crimes, including murder and assault. In The Insanity Offense, E. Fuller Torrey takes full stock of this phenomenon, exploring the causes and consequences as he weaves together narratives of individual tragedies in three states with sobering national data on our failure to treat the mentally ill. In the book's final chapters, Torrey outlines what needs to be done to reverse this ongoing―and accelerating―disaster.

ISBN-10

0393066584
ISBN-13

978-0393066586
Edition

1st
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

June 17, 2008
Language

English
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.1 x 9.6 inches
Print length

288 pages
See all details

E. Fuller Torrey
145
Hardcover
31 offers from $25.18
E. Fuller Torrey
19
Hardcover
18 offers from $2.99
E. Fuller Torrey M.D.
21
Hardcover
15 offers from $10.84
E. Fuller Torrey
484
Paperback
38 offers from $7.26
DJ Jaffe
177
Paperback
46 offers from $7.36
E. Fuller Torrey
61
Paperback
30 offers from $17.43

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The ill effects of not providing proper treatment for people with serious mental disorders has become all too apparent in recent years, writes research psychiatrist and treatment advocate Torrey (Surviving Manic-Depression). Released en masse from institutions beginning in the 1960s, the most severely ill are most likely to become homeless, incarcerated, victimized, and/or violent. Torrey details how civil liberties suits have prevented such people from being involuntarily institutionalized, leaving them a danger both to themselves and to others. Confronting these issues head on, Torrey offers both the clinical and the anecdotal, citing several tragic examples: in the case of Cho Seung-Hui, the 2007 Virginia Tech killer, he faults both the university and stringent state laws regarding involuntary commitment for neglecting to treat a clearly very ill young man. This reform-minded book calls for a change in laws affecting how mentally ill people are treated, keeping close track of those with a history of violent behavior and creating a more comprehensive treatment approach. Chilling and well documented, this text has many no-nonsense solutions to protect the mentally ill themselves as well as society as a whole. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Research psychiatrist Torrey says that what began in the 1960s as an unlikely marriage between civil liberties advocates, who saw mandatory institutionalization of the mentally ill as a civil rights violation, and cost-conscious conservatives has resulted in a national catastrophe. That was when state governments decided they could save money by deinstitutionalizing mental patients, shuttering mental hospitals, and turning thousands of schizophrenics and manic-depressives out onto the streets. Ever since then, Torrey has been tallying instances in which severe mental illness has contributed to an escalating number of violent attacks, murders, and suicides and counting the number of severely mentally ill who are either homeless or incarcerated. Though he admits some of his numbers are estimates—most public officials like to pretend the mentally ill are invisible and thus fail to keep an accounting—they speak volumes about the dire need for public institutions equipped to help the severely mentally ill regain control over their destructive behaviors. His cry is loud and clear, but his solutions, alas, are necessarily complicated. --Donna Chavez

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (June 17, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393066584
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393066586
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.1 x 9.6 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,980,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,404 in Medical Mental Illness
- #2,708 in Medical Psychology Pathologies
- #3,237 in Social Services & Welfare (Books)

Customer Reviews:
74 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

E. Fuller Torrey

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., is a research psychiatrist specializing in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He is the executive director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, the founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and the author of twenty books. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

74 global ratings

5 star		76%
4 star		15%
3 star		6%
2 star		2%
1 star		1%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all customer images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Lewis Tagliaferre

Long ovedue and too nice...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 23, 2008

Verified Purchase

This author is not kidding...he really tells it as it is, but with a light touch that may miss the mark. State legislators need to be slammed up side the head to get their attention and I fear he is a little too politically correct. As the father of a middle-aged bi-polar daughter, I was blindsided by the impact of her disease. She is one of the lucky ones who found a qualified psychiatrist and medications that are working to keep her off the streets, but barely. Unless you experience the family impact of mental illness most people just walk on by. The civil rights lawyers and courts who curtailed mandatory treatment are the real criminals in this crisis and the author is too easy on them. Mental illness still is a great social taboo in this culture of control and cure. When neither are possible our government seems paralized to respond. Unfortunately, I fear that it will take a lot more homeless people and mentally ill criminal behavior to get the needed attention and reforms. But, hey, never forget that a few highly dedicated people can change things. Meantime, you suffer and hope. Read this book and get involved. Contact the National Alliance for Mental Illness in your area.

52 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

A scary story

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 20, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book is frightening, but right here is the answer to what is going on with the mass murders. Psychotic control, not gun control, is the answer, and this author is armed with the stories and stats to convince you.

The downside is the cheap format. The book is hard to read because of little black/white contrast and inexpensive paper. In fact, it is a deterrent to reading it; I would otherwise have finished it already, I'm sure.

But if you are looking for evidence and historical precedence for the problem we have here in our society--- the huge problem--- read this book.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jeanette

Great book!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 16, 2013

Verified Purchase

Because I have a 44+ year Prison Ministry AND have a daughter who has Bi-polar Affective Disorder - and is doing GREAT! I still write letters to several inmates still serving.2
And just as I was finishing the book, I received a letter from one of them with several copies of letters he was sending on behalf of his brother, who is in another prison - and had spent 20 years in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT because he was mentally ill! I wrote several of my own letters on his behalf. Your book and my circumstances wove together perfectly. (But I haven't received an answer to any of my letters.... heavy sigh......

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 25, 2020

Verified Purchase

Im almost half way through this book this book is so real it's scary, not only is it informative but it's hard to put this book down

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Nancy B

Long Overdue

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 9, 2013

Verified Purchase

Torrey's eye-opening expose' about all that is wrong with our mental health system is a long overdue discussion. Anyone who reads this book who has or has not experienced mental illness personally or through associations with friends or family members will have to agree that the system for dealing with these life-threatening illnesses is badly broken. Mental illness has been shamefully dismissed as something other than the biological illness of the brain that it is for far too long. Time to dish the stigma associated with it and confront it head on as we have with cancer, AIDS, dementia, diabetes, and all of the other illnesses which get priority with our attention and resources.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

Important book, but very dryly written. But why was my review hidden due to a sensitivity filter?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 26, 2014

Verified Purchase

The Treatment Advocacy Center has been an incredibly important group in the glacially slow effort to help the average person understand certain aspects of serious mental illness, especially the ill person's sense of not being at all ill. I suggest you buy the book and read it, then give it to your local library.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

techuser

Excellent point made by Torrey.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 13, 2014

Verified Purchase

Very interesting and compelling argument for involuntary commitment under certain circumstances. Perhaps a little too much detail on examples of situations where individuals have been released to the community when authorities knew that The individual was most likely to do harm to self or others.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 12, 2016

Verified Purchase

This book does a wonderful job at illustrating the problems with the mental health system in America. There are several case studies detailed in the book which are really intriguing. The book is easy to follow, and reads like a fiction book. It's a great primer for anyone interesting in the US mental health system.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Follow the Author

The Insanity Offense: How America's Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens 1st Edition

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From Booklist

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the author

E. Fuller Torrey

Customer reviews

Reviews with images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.