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Distant voices, still lives: reflections on the impact of media reporting of the cases of Christopher Clunis and Ben Silcock
- Author:
- CUMMINS Ian
- Journal article citation:
- Ethnicity and Inequalities in Health and Social Care, 3(4), December 2010, pp.18-29.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
This article explores the way that the media reporting of two high profile cases involving mental health policy has helped to support and sustain the stereotypical view that people with mental health problems are violent. It also explores the issue of race and psychiatry via the reporting of the Inquiry into the Care and Treatment of Christopher Clunis. In addition, with the use of government papers obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the author considers how the response to and the attempts to influence the media debate at that time helped to shape mental health policy culminating in the reform of the Mental health Act 2007 and the introduction of community treatment orders (CTOs). In the case of Ben Silcock, first reported in 1993, emphasis was on the way that mental health services had failed him and his family. In Contrast, in the case of Christopher Clunis, a 19 year old black male, which was first reported in December 1992, focus was on the failure of mental health services to protect the wider community. It is argued that the reporting of this case reflected racial and class divisions with the voice of a black working class family being effectively marginalised. The author concludes that media reporting of high profile cases has a profound influence on the development of mental health policy and that the failings in community care had a profound influence in the introduction of more coercive mental health legislation. Mental health professionals need to challenge racial stereotyping more effectively.