Citation

Lewis A, Rigg M. Lancet Psychiatry 2022; 9(3): 193-194.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S2215-0366(22)00030-X

PMID

35183275

Abstract

This Correspondence is a call for action on several levels. We need a culture of empathy across the mental health system, which includes the police, clinicians, and all other staff involved in mental health care. They must hear the pain, loss, and devastation of being told your son, brother, sister, daughter, or partner will never return, because they have been killed at the hands of the state. Taking a unified human-centred approach across the colour spectrum, this Correspondence argues that a joint community and professional approach is needed to stop further deaths through senseless restraint. In the UK, an example of such an approach is the United Families and Friends Campaign.

Through this sense of unity, we are seeking an approach that goes beyond cultural competency or cultural advocacy. What we need is to listen, see, and feel, to close our eyes, to visualise being stopped, being handcuffed, having excessive body weight placed on the back or neck, held to the floor, or medicated until your last breath is released from your body. As Black people, we don't have the privilege to detach from these experiences. Our activism started when our vulnerable loved ones, Olaseni Lewis and Sean Rigg, were restrained in the prone position by Metropolitan police officers, for a prolonged and unnecessary amount of time...

Language: en