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R. Kelly’s conviction has sparked many conversations about the shamed singer’s disturbing behavior. His former collaborators have frequently chimed in and the latest one to speak up is Syleena Johnson. On the Oct. 5 episode of Cocktails With Queens, she said she doesn’t feel prison is a place he needs to be and that it would be more appropriate for him to be admitted into a psychiatric hospital.
“I’m not gonna cry. I think he has really been misjudged here,” she said. “I don’t think he needs to be in jail. I think he needs to be in an insane asylum. Real talk.”
Johnson feels that his behavior is more related to serious mental health issues and so he shouldn’t be treated like a criminal
“Don’t get it twisted. I think he needs to be in a straitjacket. I think some of the behavior that has been going down has been erratic, and I think that a lot of Black men in jail have been misjudged. They just throw Black men in jail. If you’re crazy, if you kill, just everybody go to jail.This dude needs real help. He needs to be in an insane asylum. Insane asylum! Real talk. On meds, drugged to the point where – constant therapy – it’s too much. It’s too much.”
As a licensed clinical social worker who practices psychotherapy, of course, I have to share my two cents. First, psychiatric illness and criminal behavior are not always related. People with certain mental illness are more prone to engage in risky behavior but it doesn’t mean they are all likely to commit crimes or that the crimes that they commit are directly correlated to their mental illness. To be clear, just because Kelly was preying on young girls, doesn’t mean he has a mental illness.
I can’t diagnose him because I haven’t done an evaluation but it is public knowledge that he has been molested, making him a survivor of sexual abuse himself. I can say, without doubt, Kelly is well aware of what happened to him and noticed when he began to experience feelings of wanting to sexually engage with underaged girls and boys. He acted on these feelings in secret, indicating that he knew it was not only illegal but immoral. Over the years, he used his fortune to keep people quiet so he wouldn’t be exposed. It was revealed during his trial that he even married 15-year-old Aaliyah after he got her pregnant so if they were found out, she wouldn’t be able to testify against him because she would be his wife. He went on to engage sexually with underage girls for the next few decades with the help of those around him with no regard for their life or his own.
I don’t disagree with Johnson regarding wanting a Black man to get appropriate levels of care considering the mass incarceration that goes on and lack of focus on rehabilitation within the criminal justice system. But R. Kelly ain’t that man. We can’t ignore that Kelly’s behavior was criminal—that Black women and girls were harmed.
People are usually put into mental health court when it is ruled that they their behavior is rooted in their mental health issues in order for them to receive treatment instead of prison time. If the mental health issues that Johnson speaks of were that servere and evident, Kelly would not have been in federal court in the first place. Kelly’s behaviors are the actions of a competent person. I say competent because he was able to use his resources, abuse tactics and concocted stories in order to engage in sexual activities with young girls. Whatever he couldn’t do, he relied on his team of employees to do for him. He was also able to write and produce songs and tour the world while doing all of this. An “insane” person would not have been able to maintain or even implement such a system.
Her comments also perpetuated some myths about mental health that were cringeworthy for me to hear as a provider. Firstly, we don’t use the term “insane asylum.” They are called psychiatric hospitals. If Kelly was a candidate for admission for a psychiatric hospital, he would’ve been there long before he had to face a judge and jury. Secondly, when straitjackets were used they were a way to keep people from physically hurting themselves or others. Saying he belongs in a straitjacket stereotypes people with mental illnesses in general. They rarely even used anymore due to being replaced with alternatives. The magnitude of his problems don’t include the use of a straitjacket and this isn’t an image to even perpetuate.
Whether he gets help or not, we can’t assume that criminality and mental illness are always directly related. It further stigmatizes mental health when we as therapists work hard to dispel these myths especially in the Black community. The only thing we know is that when Kelly is in society, he is a danger to underaged girls and boys and for that he should be incarcerated.
