PTSD, depression afflict 300,000 Iraq, Afghan war vets: study
A RAND Corporation study estimates that 300,000 vets suffer from major depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, and 320,000 suffer from probable traumatic brain injury. (Since TBI can contribute to depression and PTSD, many men and women are probably in both groups.)
One in 11 Iraq and Afghanistan vets is from Texas, so that's almost 30,000 Texans with major depression, PTSD, or TBI.
Traumatic brain injury can cause impaired social perceptiveness; impaired self-control and regulation; stimulus-bound behavior; emotional change; and inability to learn from social experience. Behavioral symptoms of TBI include impulsivity, disinhibition, anger dyscontrol, inappropriate sexual behavior, lack of initiative, and "change in personality." (Want to know more? Search for TBI on Defending People.) Symptoms of PTSD can include: emotional numbness, irritability, and outbursts of anger.
This bit's really uncontroversial, so one more time, slowly:
Impaired social perceptiveness.
Impaired self-control.
Impaired self-regulation.
Stimulus-bound behavior (failure to inhibit inappropriate responses to stimuli).
Emotional change.
Inability to learn from social experience.
Impulsivity.
Disinhibition.
Anger dyscontrol.
Inappropriate sexual behavior.
Lack of initiative.
Emotional numbness.
Irritability.
Outbursts of anger.
Think about how these physically-produced symptoms (summarily described by "change in personality") can lead to conduct outside the law. Think also about how difficult it would be to get over these symptoms. If you suffer from a lack of initiative, how do you develop the initiative to overcome it? If you suffer from impulsivity, how do you keep yourself from behaving impulsively?
Imagine that you have an ordinary young man, law-abiding, who joined the military out of a profound sense of duty, went to Iraq, and then boom. He was too near an exploding TBI. Loss of consciousness resulted, and a closed-head injury. The shock wave hit him just wrong, and caused shearing in his brain. (Read about the mechanism of TBI.) Symptoms develop over years and include some of those listed above -- say, impaired self-control and stimulus-bound behavior evidenced by anger dyscontrol and impulsivity.
Is he the same person he was before his brain got bruised? He's still the the same collection of organic chemicals and the same DNA and fingerprints, but his personality has changed -- his brain is wired differently. Are we defined by our organic chemicals, DNA, and fingerprints? Or is it our personalities that define us?
If this young man, because of his rewired brain, goes and commits some crime -- beats up his girlfriend, robs a bank, kills someone -- how do you hold him accountable? How do you decide what he deserves? How do you blame the man whose self-control was impaired by an accident for failing to control himself?
You who favor retribution as a goal of punishment: when you seek retribution against this young man, is it against the person he was before the boom, or after?
