Statement from MVFHR and NAMI on World Days

Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights
National Alliance on Mental Illness

Statement on World Day Against the Death Penalty
and World Mental Health Day
October 10, 2009

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty has designated October 10th “World Day
Against the Death Penalty,” and the World Federation for Mental Health has designated
October 10th “World Mental Health Day.” Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights
and the National Alliance on Mental Illness have taken the occasion of these two interesting
“World Days” to issue the following statement:

Today is a day of two calls to action: a call to end the death penalty and a call to
make mental health treatment a global priority. As organizations who have
come together to form the “Prevention, Not Execution” project, we bring
these two calls together and declare that it is time to end the death penalty for
people with mental illness.

This past year, Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights and the National
Alliance on Mental Illness released a report called Double Tragedies: Victims Speak
Out Against the Death Penalty for People with Severe Mental Illness, giving voice to
families throughout the United States whose lives have been forever changed
by the intersection of murder, mental illness, and the death penalty. Two
months later, Amnesty International issued a report titled Hanging by a thread:
mental health and the death penalty in Japan, highlighting the Japanese government’s
continued executions of mentally ill prisoners.

The death penalty is inappropriate for people with severe mental disorders. On
this day of two intersecting worldwide calls for change, we urge prevention of
violence, through effective and accessible mental health treatment, rather than
executions.


Renny Cushing, Executive Director
Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights
rrcushing@earthlink.net
www.murdervictimsfamilies.org
617 930 5196