Mental Illness And Crime Essay
The relationship between mental illness and crime has been questioned for quite relatively a long period of time, and during the last few decades various studies about this issue have been carried out by a number of scientists who have conducted a number of tests and studies which resulted in a range of different outcomes. People have always feared the violence of the mentally disordered, but is there really a relation between criminality and mental illness?
Among the disorders which are most commonly associated with crime, we can find: schizophrenia, major depressions, alexithymia, bipolar disorder and antisocial personality disorder (APD) or as it is better known, psychopathy.
Schizophrenia
As mentioned above schizophrenia is one of the mental disorders commonly associated with crime and it could easily be said to be the mental illness given …show more content…
most attention by the media. Schizophrenia is said to be a result of both biological predisposition and environmental causes. It most commonly takes the form of hallucinations, strange delusions and unorganized talk and thought. Its symptoms are said to start appearing during early teenage years and it is most commonly identified by observing the patient, and analyzing the patient’s history. This disorder mainly affects the reasoning of one’s thoughts and it usually leads to long term problematic issues mostly with emotions and behavior. The patient is also said to lose interest or pleasure in certain activities. Individuals may develop different characteristics, like for example inappropriate smiling, and silly facial expressions. In most of the cases, there may be a time reversal, where they stay up late and awake during the night and sleep through the day.
Schizophrenics are also known to have a tendency for drug abuse, with an alarming rate of almost 50 percent which end up abusing substances. This in turn leads to social problems such as unemployment and homelessness.
Major Depression
Another mental disorder which could be said to be one of the most common is major depression. People suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) are typical of suffering from bad moods, low self esteem, and lack of interest in pleasurable actions. Major depression affects one’s family, social and working life because of the factors mentioned above.
Around 3.4 percent of people who suffer from MDD actually end up committing suicide in the United States alone, while up to 60 percent of suicide victims are afflicted by major depression.
This disorder is diagnosed from reports given by friends, family and other people who have close relationships with the patient, while performing a mental status examination could also help diagnose this illness. Depression is most commonly seen between the ages of 20 and 30 with a subsequent climax during the 30 to 40 year old period. The causal factor of MDD is still not yet known to scientists and researchers, even though many of them believe that it is caused by chemical imbalances inside the brain, which could be transferred genetically from previous generations.
Alexithymia
The term Alexithymia was used by psychotherapist Peter Sifneos in 1973 and it refers to a condition known to make the individual prone to other medical and psychiatric disorders.
Symptoms of alexithymia may include difficulty in recognizing feelings and emotions and problems in separating them from one another, along with difficulty in describing them. People who are diagnosed with this condition also suffer from a lack of imagination which causes difficulty in dreaming and fantasizing. In fact their dreams are usually said to be very realistic and are based on everyday circumstances, like for example going shopping.
Sometimes the behavior of alexithymics may seem to go against the symptoms mentioned because they might break into crying or experience outbursts of rage, but when questioned they would still be confused about what they are feeling.
Just like depression, it is still unclear as to what the causes of this condition actually are, but researchers firmly believe that it is due to lack of information transfer between the right hemisphere of the brain and the language part in the left hemisphere.
Bipolar Disorder
People suffering from bipolar disorder usually go through extreme mood swings going in two different directions, mania and depression. Mania is where you feel extremely excited and euphoric, while depression is when you feel at you all time low with low self esteem and feel very miserable. In bipolar disorder, these two extremes may last for few weeks at a time and may even affect your lifestyle and your surroundings.
It is common for people suffering with bipolar disorder to be originally diagnosed with depression since it is usually the first symptom and then the diagnoses changes as the patient swings to the manic state.
During the manic state, you may feel very creative and make plans for the future and view everything in life as a vast and positive journey, but you may also suffer from hallucinations and view or hear things that do not actually exist.
Like many other mental disorders, researchers do not know what causes Bipolar Disorder but many say that it may be triggered by both environmental (traumatic events) and biological (brain function) factors.
Antisocial Personal Disorder
Antisocial personal disorder (APD) is probably the most common disorder related to criminal offences. Actions of people suffering from APD may include: the lack of remorse, continuous lying or stealing, cruelty to animals, problems in controlling their own emotions, aggressiveness and quite often violent and have difficulty obeying the rules and regulations imposed by society.
Since these symptoms are very commonly found in children, antisocial personal disorder cannot be diagnosed until the patient is at least 18 years of age, and must have some form of delinquency acts before he is 15 years of age.
Around 80 to 85 percent of prisoners are found to have some form of APD, although only about 20 percent are found to be fit for psychopathic diagnosis. Individuals suffering from this disorder are prone to premature death mainly caused by some form of violence, like for example suicide , accidents or homicide.
Evidence points to inheritance as the main cause of APD but problems in a family and in the environment a child grows up in may also cause someone to become more prone to it.
Mental disorders and drugs and alcohol abuse
Criminal behavior of people with mental disorders is hard to calculate since information sources are very hard to obtain. According to studies carried out recently on a community basis, people with major disorders are not at greater risk of committing a crime than the common person walking in the street.
On the other hand alcohol and drug use is much more related to crime than mental disorders. People with mental disorders and people without, are at the same risk of committing a crime when being under the influence of alcohol or illegal substances.
But when it comes to people suffering from mental disorders, we can conclude that they are seven times more likely than a mentally healthy human being to become a substance abuser, which makes them more prone to engage in criminal activity.
Mentally ill people may start using drugs to alleviate the symptoms of their disorder. This process is called self-medicating. According to the American Psychiatric Association people who suffer from schizophrenia often use marijuana to relieve symptoms such as depression and paranoia.
The process could also happen the other way round. In some cases people start suffering from serious mental disorders as a consequence of abusing drugs. For example MDMA causes serious long-term deficiencies in the brain’s functioning which can result in depression and other types of disorders. In youths, drug abuse can effect the brain’s development, which can cause major damage and result in future disorders.
Prison and Mental Health
According to statistics, prison has around 20-35 percent of its inmates suffer from mental disorders. This shows that the percentage of mentally disordered incarcerated amounts to the same percentage as mentally disordered in the outside world. Therefore this statistic shows that mentally disordered people are at the same risk of committing crime as healthy minded people.
The most common characteristics of inmates with mental disorder are found to be that they are incarcerated for violent crimes, when they are usually under the influence of drugs or alcohol and to have been homeless a year prior the incident.
But this statistic cannot be accurate enough, since mentally ill offenders are more likely to be less competent and being caught. Another factor is that some offenders may be sent to mental facilities instead of prison, so the figures may vary. An interesting fact is that some people may become mentally unstable after they have been sent to prison. Incarcerated prisoners tend to suffer from depression and other mental related disorders.
Incompetence to stand trial.
A person suffering from major mental disorders may not be competent to stand for trial.
This is because the court requires that the defendant must be able to understand the accusations being brought against him and be able to plead guilty or not guilty.
Different criminal justice systems have different standards to to assess incompetence. Overall, however, competence is only questioned in 10 percent of the cases and only confirmed in 25-30 percent of those cases. The issue of someone not being fit for trial can be raised at any time during trial process, but is usually raised immediately after the arrest. The court will then proceed to an assessment of the person’s mental health, usually carried out by a psychiatrist or psychologist.
If the defendant is found to be incompetent for trial, medical care will be ordered. This medical care is not given to cure him, but only to get him to a competent state where he is fit to stand for trial.
A controversial issue that arises is if a person who is being treated by psychotropic drugs can be given a fair trial since they can change a person’s appearance and
personality.
Psychotropic drugs are chemical substances which mainly effect the central nervous system, and alters the person’s mood, behavior and perception. Apart from psychiatric uses, these drugs are also used recreationally and to cure other conditions. LSD for example is used to cure alcoholism.
If the defendant does not wish to submit himself or herself to psychotropic medication, the court can force him to take it, bringing forward the argument that in the case of a serious crime, the trial is more important than one’s freedom of choice.
Future treatment of disordered offenders
In the past, people classified as criminally insane were placed in asylums specifically set up for the mentally disordered criminals. These so-called criminally insane were treated as a different class of people and that their needs for therapy could only be met by giving them treatment in a more secure custody. Patients inside these asylum often suffered physical abuse and other experimental treatment to test new drugs.
These asylums were place under the authority of the corrections department and not the health department. People not competent to stand for trial were placed in these facilities along with people who have developed mental disorders in prison and in some rare occasions even civilians who were considered a danger to society. These institutions did not offer high quality services and throughout the years we have found out that long-term confinement often works in the opposite direction, making patients wore instead of curing them.
Nowadays institutions for these alleged mentally disordered offenders have been updated and are now up to standard thanks to pressure made by the courts and other advancements made in the drugs used to rehabilitate these people. These factors made these facilities much more effecient.
Experience has shown that it is not a very good idea to place the criminally insane in normal hospitals or on an outpatient basis, since they first seem to get better, only to reengage in crime a while later.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this has been an unresolved issue for quite a long period of time since there is no concrete evidence that shows the relation between mental disorders and criminality. It is not true that all criminals are sick, and that all mentally disordered are criminals. The brain is the most complex part of our body and we still haven’t fully understood the way it works. Many scientists are still engaged in the nature vs. nurture debate about mental illness and experimenting with new ways to investigate their relation with crime.
References http://www.schizophrenia.com/hypo.php http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/574599 http://law.jrank.org/pages/1591/Mentally-Disordered-Offenders-future-treatment-disordered-offenders.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_drug http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Bipolar-disorder/Pages/Introduction.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis/p20-pe04.html http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs7/7343/index.htm#What http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/what-causes-antisocial-personality-disorder/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_drug
Among the disorders which are most commonly associated with crime, we can find: schizophrenia, major depressions, alexithymia, bipolar disorder and antisocial personality disorder (APD) or as it is better known, psychopathy.
Schizophrenia
As mentioned above schizophrenia is one of the mental disorders commonly associated with crime and it could easily be said to be the mental illness given …show more content…
most attention by the media. Schizophrenia is said to be a result of both biological predisposition and environmental causes. It most commonly takes the form of hallucinations, strange delusions and unorganized talk and thought. Its symptoms are said to start appearing during early teenage years and it is most commonly identified by observing the patient, and analyzing the patient’s history. This disorder mainly affects the reasoning of one’s thoughts and it usually leads to long term problematic issues mostly with emotions and behavior. The patient is also said to lose interest or pleasure in certain activities. Individuals may develop different characteristics, like for example inappropriate smiling, and silly facial expressions. In most of the cases, there may be a time reversal, where they stay up late and awake during the night and sleep through the day.
Schizophrenics are also known to have a tendency for drug abuse, with an alarming rate of almost 50 percent which end up abusing substances. This in turn leads to social problems such as unemployment and homelessness.
Major Depression
Another mental disorder which could be said to be one of the most common is major depression. People suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) are typical of suffering from bad moods, low self esteem, and lack of interest in pleasurable actions. Major depression affects one’s family, social and working life because of the factors mentioned above.
Around 3.4 percent of people who suffer from MDD actually end up committing suicide in the United States alone, while up to 60 percent of suicide victims are afflicted by major depression.
This disorder is diagnosed from reports given by friends, family and other people who have close relationships with the patient, while performing a mental status examination could also help diagnose this illness. Depression is most commonly seen between the ages of 20 and 30 with a subsequent climax during the 30 to 40 year old period. The causal factor of MDD is still not yet known to scientists and researchers, even though many of them believe that it is caused by chemical imbalances inside the brain, which could be transferred genetically from previous generations.
Alexithymia
The term Alexithymia was used by psychotherapist Peter Sifneos in 1973 and it refers to a condition known to make the individual prone to other medical and psychiatric disorders.
Symptoms of alexithymia may include difficulty in recognizing feelings and emotions and problems in separating them from one another, along with difficulty in describing them. People who are diagnosed with this condition also suffer from a lack of imagination which causes difficulty in dreaming and fantasizing. In fact their dreams are usually said to be very realistic and are based on everyday circumstances, like for example going shopping.
Sometimes the behavior of alexithymics may seem to go against the symptoms mentioned because they might break into crying or experience outbursts of rage, but when questioned they would still be confused about what they are feeling.
Just like depression, it is still unclear as to what the causes of this condition actually are, but researchers firmly believe that it is due to lack of information transfer between the right hemisphere of the brain and the language part in the left hemisphere.
Bipolar Disorder
People suffering from bipolar disorder usually go through extreme mood swings going in two different directions, mania and depression. Mania is where you feel extremely excited and euphoric, while depression is when you feel at you all time low with low self esteem and feel very miserable. In bipolar disorder, these two extremes may last for few weeks at a time and may even affect your lifestyle and your surroundings.
It is common for people suffering with bipolar disorder to be originally diagnosed with depression since it is usually the first symptom and then the diagnoses changes as the patient swings to the manic state.
During the manic state, you may feel very creative and make plans for the future and view everything in life as a vast and positive journey, but you may also suffer from hallucinations and view or hear things that do not actually exist.
Like many other mental disorders, researchers do not know what causes Bipolar Disorder but many say that it may be triggered by both environmental (traumatic events) and biological (brain function) factors.
Antisocial Personal Disorder
Antisocial personal disorder (APD) is probably the most common disorder related to criminal offences. Actions of people suffering from APD may include: the lack of remorse, continuous lying or stealing, cruelty to animals, problems in controlling their own emotions, aggressiveness and quite often violent and have difficulty obeying the rules and regulations imposed by society.
Since these symptoms are very commonly found in children, antisocial personal disorder cannot be diagnosed until the patient is at least 18 years of age, and must have some form of delinquency acts before he is 15 years of age.
Around 80 to 85 percent of prisoners are found to have some form of APD, although only about 20 percent are found to be fit for psychopathic diagnosis. Individuals suffering from this disorder are prone to premature death mainly caused by some form of violence, like for example suicide , accidents or homicide.
Evidence points to inheritance as the main cause of APD but problems in a family and in the environment a child grows up in may also cause someone to become more prone to it.
Mental disorders and drugs and alcohol abuse
Criminal behavior of people with mental disorders is hard to calculate since information sources are very hard to obtain. According to studies carried out recently on a community basis, people with major disorders are not at greater risk of committing a crime than the common person walking in the street.
On the other hand alcohol and drug use is much more related to crime than mental disorders. People with mental disorders and people without, are at the same risk of committing a crime when being under the influence of alcohol or illegal substances.
But when it comes to people suffering from mental disorders, we can conclude that they are seven times more likely than a mentally healthy human being to become a substance abuser, which makes them more prone to engage in criminal activity.
Mentally ill people may start using drugs to alleviate the symptoms of their disorder. This process is called self-medicating. According to the American Psychiatric Association people who suffer from schizophrenia often use marijuana to relieve symptoms such as depression and paranoia.
The process could also happen the other way round. In some cases people start suffering from serious mental disorders as a consequence of abusing drugs. For example MDMA causes serious long-term deficiencies in the brain’s functioning which can result in depression and other types of disorders. In youths, drug abuse can effect the brain’s development, which can cause major damage and result in future disorders.
Prison and Mental Health
According to statistics, prison has around 20-35 percent of its inmates suffer from mental disorders. This shows that the percentage of mentally disordered incarcerated amounts to the same percentage as mentally disordered in the outside world. Therefore this statistic shows that mentally disordered people are at the same risk of committing crime as healthy minded people.
The most common characteristics of inmates with mental disorder are found to be that they are incarcerated for violent crimes, when they are usually under the influence of drugs or alcohol and to have been homeless a year prior the incident.
But this statistic cannot be accurate enough, since mentally ill offenders are more likely to be less competent and being caught. Another factor is that some offenders may be sent to mental facilities instead of prison, so the figures may vary. An interesting fact is that some people may become mentally unstable after they have been sent to prison. Incarcerated prisoners tend to suffer from depression and other mental related disorders.
Incompetence to stand trial.
A person suffering from major mental disorders may not be competent to stand for trial.
This is because the court requires that the defendant must be able to understand the accusations being brought against him and be able to plead guilty or not guilty.
Different criminal justice systems have different standards to to assess incompetence. Overall, however, competence is only questioned in 10 percent of the cases and only confirmed in 25-30 percent of those cases. The issue of someone not being fit for trial can be raised at any time during trial process, but is usually raised immediately after the arrest. The court will then proceed to an assessment of the person’s mental health, usually carried out by a psychiatrist or psychologist.
If the defendant is found to be incompetent for trial, medical care will be ordered. This medical care is not given to cure him, but only to get him to a competent state where he is fit to stand for trial.
A controversial issue that arises is if a person who is being treated by psychotropic drugs can be given a fair trial since they can change a person’s appearance and
personality.
Psychotropic drugs are chemical substances which mainly effect the central nervous system, and alters the person’s mood, behavior and perception. Apart from psychiatric uses, these drugs are also used recreationally and to cure other conditions. LSD for example is used to cure alcoholism.
If the defendant does not wish to submit himself or herself to psychotropic medication, the court can force him to take it, bringing forward the argument that in the case of a serious crime, the trial is more important than one’s freedom of choice.
Future treatment of disordered offenders
In the past, people classified as criminally insane were placed in asylums specifically set up for the mentally disordered criminals. These so-called criminally insane were treated as a different class of people and that their needs for therapy could only be met by giving them treatment in a more secure custody. Patients inside these asylum often suffered physical abuse and other experimental treatment to test new drugs.
These asylums were place under the authority of the corrections department and not the health department. People not competent to stand for trial were placed in these facilities along with people who have developed mental disorders in prison and in some rare occasions even civilians who were considered a danger to society. These institutions did not offer high quality services and throughout the years we have found out that long-term confinement often works in the opposite direction, making patients wore instead of curing them.
Nowadays institutions for these alleged mentally disordered offenders have been updated and are now up to standard thanks to pressure made by the courts and other advancements made in the drugs used to rehabilitate these people. These factors made these facilities much more effecient.
Experience has shown that it is not a very good idea to place the criminally insane in normal hospitals or on an outpatient basis, since they first seem to get better, only to reengage in crime a while later.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this has been an unresolved issue for quite a long period of time since there is no concrete evidence that shows the relation between mental disorders and criminality. It is not true that all criminals are sick, and that all mentally disordered are criminals. The brain is the most complex part of our body and we still haven’t fully understood the way it works. Many scientists are still engaged in the nature vs. nurture debate about mental illness and experimenting with new ways to investigate their relation with crime.
References http://www.schizophrenia.com/hypo.php http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/574599 http://law.jrank.org/pages/1591/Mentally-Disordered-Offenders-future-treatment-disordered-offenders.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_drug http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Bipolar-disorder/Pages/Introduction.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis/p20-pe04.html http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs7/7343/index.htm#What http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/what-causes-antisocial-personality-disorder/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_drug