Approximately a million people in America’s criminal justice system suffer from a major mental disorder, an academic study reports. However, the study suggests most crimes are not attributable to mental illnesses.
“These findings suggest that programs will be most effective in reducing recidivism if they expand beyond psychiatric symptoms” to address variable risk factors such as antisocial traits, according to the report by the American Psychological Association.
Of the 7.3 million people under correctional supervision in the United States (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2009), about 15 percent suffer from serious disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression, the April 2014 report stated.
Approximately 1 million people with a major mental disorder are involved in the criminal justice system, the report added.
The study authors are Jillian K. Peterson and Jennifer Skeem of the University of California, Irvine; Patrick Kennealy of the University of South Florida, Beth Bray of the University of North Dakota and Andrea Zvonkovic of Columbia University.
The study of 132 psychiatric patients at high risk for community violence found that anger robustly predicted violence. Impulsivity was another symptom included in the article’s definition of mental illness. Bipolar symptoms of impulsivity include “distractibility” and “excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences.” Another symptom of mental illness, depression (hopelessness, suicide) was directly related to criminal behavior in about 3 percent of cases.
Defendants acquitted by reason of insanity for one crime theoretically would not commit any other crimes apply even to offenders acquitted by reason of insanity. For example, researchers followed 585 offenders acquitted by reason of insanity for five years to identify factors that predicted revocation of conditional release from the hospital.
Clinical factors did not predict revocation, but general risk factors for crime did. (e.g. criminal history, substance abuse, being non-white, unmarried and unemployed). Persons acquitted of a crime by reason of insanity sometimes commit crimes based on similar risk factors as non-mentally ill offenders. This is consistent with the premise that these individuals commit “sane” and “insane” crimes over time.
Of crimes committed by participants with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, 23 percent were completely or mostly related directly to symptoms. Forty-two percent were crimes against another person, 42 percent were property crimes and 16 percent were minor crimes, such as trespassing.
“These findings suggest that programs will be most effective in reducing recidivism”
Of the crimes committed by individuals in this study with bipolar disorder, 62 percent were completely or mostly related directly to symptoms. Thirty-nine percent were crimes against another person, 42 percent were property crimes and 19 percent were minor crimes.
Fifteen percent of crimes committed by participants with depression were completely or mostly related directly to symptoms. Thirty-nine percent of these crimes were against another person, 15 percent were property crimes and 46 percent were minor crimes.
The study concluded an offender who commits a crime that is directly connected to symptoms often commits other crimes unrelated to symptoms. The majority of mostly or completely direct crimes (62 percent) were linked to symptoms of bipolar disorder.
Another finding of the study: System solutions like diversion programs that focus predominantly on symptom control tend to have little effect on recidivism.
This study also indicated that effective mental health treatment may prevent a minority of crimes from occurring, but would likely not improve criminal justice outcomes for the vast majority of offenders with mental illness.
