Louis Theroux: By Reason of Insanity

In 2014 three guys in my building in Isla Vista were was stabbed to death by their roommate. That killer would, in virtually any other developed country, have been remanded into mental heath care facility for mandatory treatment of BEFORE those murders. We also know that the mass murderer in Parkland would have been remanded before committing his mass murder in most other countries.

When I had read in the local press that the isla Vista murderer 's parents had desperately been trying to get him committed before those murders, I found out why they could not: Decades of relentless and irresponsible efforts by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) to make it almost impossible to get someone remanded in the US . If you go to the US NIH site, which has a good search function for academic articles on medical issues, there are actually peer reviewed studies documenting how a huge number of dangerous conditions combined with demonstrated dangerous behavior, allow the authorities in Australia, Canada, the UK, Japan, France, Sweden, Denmark etc to bring a person in for evaluation easier and have lower probative thresholds for commitment and compulsory treatment.

Louis doesn't go into ANY of that in this series. The issue of mental health is not just about after a crime, but about prevention. The ACLU has made it virtually impossible to prevent some of these crimes.

Louis Theroux does not always seem sincere in what he does; he plays the innocent abroad very well – even when he is basically feeding a ropes to his subjects to let them go the hanging themselves. In this documentary he does play his neutral self, but he does so to good effect rather than to trick or trap. In doing this the 2-part documentary treats its subjects with respect – even when what they say has scope for mockery or comedy (such as the reason for someone driving recklessly).

In doing this he lets the subject speak for itself, and it is a chilling subject. The wider question of what is to be done, what defines insanity, and the treatment of those involved, all sit behind an array of characters who range from the eccentric to the chilling. The documentary gives them time and is not shy about what crimes they had committed; it is a tough watch in many ways as one thinks of the lives affected – both perpetrator and victims. Theroux explores the subject really well; he doesn't push anyone even when he is asking them tough questions – he does have a knack for getting people to open up as he does here.

It is a little unsatisfying in the way in which doesn't provide a great sense of closure – but then to be fair, the point is that there are no easy answers to any of it.