{"id":125954,"date":"2025-05-05T06:00:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T10:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/?p=125954"},"modified":"2025-05-05T16:57:52","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T20:57:52","slug":"psychiatrys-legacy-of-racism-and-coercion-highlighted-in-restraint-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/psychiatrys-legacy-of-racism-and-coercion-highlighted-in-restraint-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychiatry’s Legacy of Racism and Coercion Highlighted in Restraint Deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 5, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — With May being Mental Health Month, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is spotlighting a disturbing new study published in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine<\/em>, titled \u201cI Can’t Breathe\u201d \u2013 A Study of Civil Litigated Cases on Prone Restraint Deaths<\/em>. The review analyzed 229 fatal police restraint cases from 2010 to 2019. Of those where race was reported, 38% of the victims were African American. In 58% of cases, death occurred within five minutes of restraint; more than 20% of victims were recorded gasping, \u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d\u2014a hallmark of lethal respiratory failure.[1]<\/p>\n

\"CCHR
Image caption: CCHR calls for a permanent end to coercive psychiatric practices: banning forced treatment, physical and chemical restraint, and psychological \u201ckillology\u201d law enforcement training. They also demand accountability for harm and deaths caused by such practices.<\/em><\/p>\n

The mental health watchdog warns that such deaths are rooted in eugenic ideologies that historically promoted coercion under the guise of control. The disproportionate representation of African Americans in restraint-related deaths reflects entrenched psychiatric and psychological racism\u2014pseudoscientific theories that falsely declared Black inferiority and continue to influence profiling today.<\/p>\n

This coercive culture is echoed in “warrior-style” or “killology” law enforcement training developed by a psychology professor 20 years ago that promotes a \u201ckill or be killed\u201d mindset. It conditions officers to respond with deadly force. As Mother Jones<\/em> reported, such training \u201coften runs the risk of the use of unnecessary, and sometimes, fatal force.\u201d[2]<\/p>\n

Such force reflects a broader, systemic pattern: racial profiling and the use of physical and chemical restraints, disproportionately on African Americans. A 2017 New York Law School Journal<\/em> report confirmed: \u201cBehavior by African-Americans is more often interpreted as \u2018dangerous\u2019 than identical behavior by whites,\u201d and they are more likely to be labeled with psychiatric conduct disorders.[3]<\/p>\n

These injustices trace back to the slave era. Benjamin Rush, dubbed the \u201cfather of American psychiatry,\u201d claimed Blacks suffered from \u201cNegritude\u201d\u2014a disease curable only by whitening their skin. His prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Dr. Samuel Cartwright, fabricated the diagnosis \u201cDrapetomania\u201d to explain why slaves tried to escape, advocating that \u201cwhipping the devil out of them\u201d was therapeutic.[4] Myths that Blacks were \u201cmore durable to pain\u201d persist today, known as Black hardiness,\u201d stereotypes that influence restraint and drugging.<\/p>\n

CCHR highlights the enduring racism embedded in psychiatric practice:<\/em><\/p>\n