This document discusses the complex relationship between mental illness and crime. While there is a clear connection between mental illness and incarceration, the link between mental illness and actual criminal behavior is more nuanced. Several studies mentioned found moderate connections between some mental illnesses like schizophrenia and crime, especially when combined with substance abuse, but many mentally ill individuals are non-violent. The document examines how factors like deinstitutionalization, homelessness, poverty, and drug use associated with mental illness can influence criminality as well.

1. Khristine Jackson
Theories of Crime Deviance
Due: Week 14
Dr. George Ackerman

2. Crime is a function
of mental illness, or
at least an essential
causal factor, is not
an uncommon claim.

3.  There is a clear connection between
mental illness and incarceration, but a
link between illness an crime is another
matter.
 There is also a very clear link with
mental illness, gender and violence. Men
are far more likely to be violent with a
mental problem than women are.
However, mentally ill women are more
prone to crime in general.

4.  One study, performed by Hodgins (1993)
held that there is a link between
mental illness and crime, but this link
is moderated by the fact that the use
of illicit drugs is far higher among the
mentally ill than any other
population segment.
 The US Justice Department issued its
(1996) study on crime and mental
illness under the authorship of John
Monahan. While there is only a weak
link between mental illness and
violent crime, there is a robust link
between mental disorders and crime in

5.  Deinstitutionalization has also been at the
core of this debate. With the development
of new anti-psychotic drugs, SSRIs and
SNRIs, long term institutionalization was
becoming a thing of the past. Yet, this also
meant that potentially dangerous people
with mental problems were now free to
roam.
 Since those with mental illness are more
likely to be homeless, poor or on drugs,
it stands to reason that there is a clear

6.  Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is associated with a large
jump in violent criminality especially
when connected with substance abuse or
additional psychotic disorders.
Of course, since full blown schizophrenia
is fairly rare, violent offenders with
schizophrenia are a small portion of the
total. But those with the disease are very
much at risk.

7.  Recent work has shown that youths with
mental problems are far more likely to
commit crimes than those with no history
of illness.
 Juvenile delinquents have mental
disorders at a rate much higher than the
general population.
 In fact, about 50% of those arrested as
adults, in one study, had been diagnosed
with some form of mental illness as a

8.  That crime is a function of mental illness,
or at least an essential causal factor, is
not an uncommon claim.
 The numbers of prison inmates with
mental disorders had yet to be
established, but estimates range from 20
to 80%.
 Contemporary research is almost
unanimous that there is a direct, yet
complex, link between different mental

9.  Monahan, J (1996) Mental Illness and Violent Crime. National Institute of Justice
 https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/mentilln.pdf
 Grisso, T (2007) Do Childhood Mental Disorders Cause Adult Crime? American Journal of Psychiatry, 164, 1625-
1627
 http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=99137
 Sestoft, D (2007) Crime and Mental Illness: It's Time to Take Action. World Psychiatry, 5(2) 95
 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1525117/
 Hodgins S. (1992) Mental Disorder, Intellectual Deficiency, and Crime. Evidence from a Birth Cohort. Archives
Gen Psychiatry, 49:476–483
 Walsh E. Buchanan A. Fahy T. (2002) Violence and Schizophrenia: Examining the Evidence. British Journal of
Psychiatry, 180:490–495
 http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/180/6/490.full.pdf+html
 Richard-Devantoy S, Olie JP, Gourevitch R.(2009) Risk of Homicide and Major Mental Disorders. Encephale,
35(6), 521-30