Britney Spears has predictably lost visitation rights for her two children, Jayden James, 1, and Sean Preston, 2, after her very public breakdown that followed a hostage situation in which she locked herself in a bathroom for over three hours and refused to hand over her youngest child. She has temporarily lost all visitation by court order until another hearing can be held on January 14.

The issue of whether Britney should be held accountable for her actions is a contentious one, with many people claiming that Britney is insane and deserves our pity, not our condemnation.

How much of Britney’s behavior is she personally responsible for?
There’s a lot of debate in the Britney Spears case as to which behavior she’s personally responsible for and what can be chalked up to mental illness. This isn’t a new issue, and the answer isn’t black and white. She’s clearly mentally unstable, and might meet diagnostic criteria for a specific mental disorder, we’re not going to speculate too much but bipolar disorder, narcissistic personal disorder and even schizophrenia have been mentioned. Even if she is certifiably insane, how much of her behavior should she be held accountable for? I found some articles on the issue of mental illness and personal responsibility that were too technical for me to understand, but this question and answer from Yahoo! Canada Answers is interesting and food for thought:

Question from Desi Dani: If everything is due to chemical imbalances, where does personal responsibilities come into play? If man can use the excuse of being mentally ill or depressed, where does that leave personal responsibility? What about conscious choices? Is there an excuse for everything?

Why do people use the mental excuse when they have done something that is unbecoming; yet when they done something that is becoming it is a conscious choice, a personal decision?

Chosen Answer from Pete: Because personal responsibility doesn’t seem as common as it used to be. That’s not saying that mental illness shouldn’t be recognized, but people shouldn’t use it as an excuse for not being accountable for their actions.

[From Ca.Yahoo.com]

Andrea Yates drowned five of her children in the bathtub and she did it systematically, chasing them down until she caught and murdered all of them. She was declared clinically insane, and it seems you’d have to be to commit such a cruel act. Does that mean she shouldn’t spend the rest of her life in an institution because she was crazy and not responsible for her actions? Of course not. The criminal justice system sets it up so that she is not punished like a sane person who would have committed the same crime, but so that she is effectively removed from society and cannot harm others in the future.

Britney Spears took one of her children hostage and refused to hand him over by court order, even after police arrived at her home. Whether she was insane or not, she should have to face the consequences of her actions. If those consequences involve extended treatment for a mental illness instead of jail time then so be it. Either way, she’s not able to be around her children, even with supervision, and should possibly undergo treatment so that she doesn’t harm herself or others.

People are focused too much on criticism of Britney at what must be a very difficult time for her. There’s criticism of Britney because she committed a criminal act that endangered her child. If all crazy people who threatened and hurt others were pitied and coddled instead of ordered to undergo treatment and/or punished, society wouldn’t function. Did anyone really say “wow, I feel so sorry for Andrea Yates, being so crazy that the devil told her to drown her kids like that?” But some say they feel sorry for Britney for traumatizing her little boys by locking them with her in a bathroom. I feel sorry for her children, not so much for her.

Also it’s interesting to note that when Britney seemed sane and able to hold somewhat rational conversations, she never took responsibility for her actions.
1. She blamed her near-drop of Sean Preston in the street on the uneven road, not the fact that she was wearing too long pants and was carrying a highball glass at the same time.
2. She said after she was caught driving with Sean Preston on her lap that her dad did it too when she was growing up and that “we’re country like that.”
3. She didn’t even leave a note when she hit someone’s car and multiple people witnessed and taped it
4. She blamed her mother and manager for sending her to rehab
5. She has repeatedly flouted requirements and even basic demands in her custody battle

So is Britney a person who does whatever she wants and doesn’t take responsibility, or is she a person suffering from a mental illness that forces her to do these things? I think the answer is a lot of both with some major exhibitionism mixed in.

Here’s what JayBird has to say about the matter. She has a criminal justice degree and I like her very human approach to what happened. She wrote this to me in an e-mail, which is why it has a more conversational tone.

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Commentary from JayBird: What I’m guessing happened with Britney last night is that one little thing got totally out of control. What probably started out as just an act of selfishness “No I don’t wanna” quickly escalated because she had someone involved with the criminal justice system (the monitor) there. She was probably behaving in a way that she has before, but she had someone there who wouldn’t react like the other people around her react. Then she probably got scared and didn’t know what to do. And when people start treating you like you’re REALLY crazy (not regular Britney crazy) you start to feel like you are, or feel like you have to act that way. Especially when you don’t have the maturity to know better. Also, people throw out things about killing themselves and things that sound like “self harm” to a professional, without necessarily meaning them in that way. But it’s hard to convince someone of that. Don’t get me wrong, I think Brit is crazy. But I don’t think there was enough evidence that she actually was asylum-worthy until last night. I’m really thinking she didn’t have any idea things would escalate the way they did, and thought people would just give in to her whims. The whole thing is so confusing, and oddly, it’s the only time I’ve ever had any sympathy for her.

The law of course varies greatly state by state, and all of my criminal justice knowledge is based on WA law. But in Washington, CPS would take her kids away for a one month period, during which time the burden would be on Britney to prove that she was a fit parent. Traditionally, the law does whatever it can to keep parents and kids together. However at this point, they’d be doing whatever they could to keep them apart.

I don’t know about you, but I think that she has an ethical personal responsibility to give up her kids, at least for now. Clearly she’s suffered a complete mental breakdown, and that can take a year or two to recover from. I almost think this might end up being a good thing for her. She wasn’t listening to anyone else before. But if the law gets involved not just in her parenting, but in her mental health, then she may be forced to get help.