It is also surprising that, mood disorder will lead to crime potentially.
In the picture above, it shows a bipolar disorder phrase: Depression, and Manic. Comparing with schizophrenic patients crime rate, mood disorder crime rate is significantly lower, and the harm caused is also significantly less. During the manic phrase, patients are often have lower ability to control self behavior, and it is easier to have interpersonal conflict, impulsively shopping behavior, unorganized investment actions, on the other hand, during the depressive period, patients are more vulnerable to commit a murder.
Crimes in manic phase: Rape, fraud, threatening, burglary, molesting
Crimes in depressive phase: commit suicide, murder, arson, stealing
Crimes that schizophrenic patients commit, if they do, mainly divided into harming others, stealing, murder, and arson according to a study conducted by E. Bleuler at 1911. The time between first crime they commit and the onset of schizophrenia ranges from 5 to 10 years, and often the crime is violent, for instance harming and murder. It is common that the crime they commit is often minor, however there are some rare circumstances the crime is severe and significant. However, there were researches indicate that the probability that schizophrenia patients do not have a lower severity crime than other mental disorders.
According to Taylor, P.J in Schizophrenia and Crime: Distinctive patterns in association with data collected from chronic prisoners, there were 9% of psychological disordered, and almost every one of them has positive symptoms. There were also 8% of prisoners charged with murders had schizophrenia; in another study by Taylor, there were 121 mentally disrupted among 203 prisoners, and 90% of 121 prisoners were diagnosed as schizophrenia.
In another study conducted in Taiwan in 1996 , there were 47.6% of prisoners were diagnosed as schizophrenic; and in 1997 a study named “Analysis of murderer of under-aged female”, schizophrenia patients occupied 53.3% among the sample; in Taylor’s study (1993), he examined 1241 male prisoners and found that murderer and arsonists population have a higher prevalence of schizophrenic than the general population. Most of the victims from violet crime by schizophrenia patients are surprisingly their relatives and friends, but not strangers. In Finland, there was a study on arsonist and serious violent crime schizophrenia patients: delusion causes 1/3 of the crimes and the rest were caused by family pressure, for example discrimination or unfair treatment by family members.
In North Carolina, 331 individuals with severe psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, affective disorders with psychotic features) were questioned about victimization in the 4-month period immediately preceding their psychiatric hospitalization. All 331 individuals had been referred for outpatient commitment, strongly suggesting that they were noncompliant with their medications. Of the 331 individuals, 27 (8.2 percent) had been the victim of a violent crime (assault, rape, or mugging) within the previous 4 months, a rate 2.7 times higher than the annual rate of violent criminal victimization in the United States.
More than one fourth of individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) were victims of violent crime in the past years starting from 2004 where the research started, eleven times the rate in the general population, according to a study in the 2005 August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Prior studies suggest that individuals with mental disorders who live in the community are a vulnerable population at high risk of becoming victims of crime, according to background information in the article. Symptoms associated with severe mental illness, such as disorganized thought processes, impulsivity and poor planning and problem solving may compromise one’s ability to perceive risks and protect oneself, the authors suggest. Other factors correlated with victimization, including substance abuse, conflicted social relationships, poverty and homelessness, are also common among persons with severe mental illness.
Linda A. Teplin, Ph.D., of the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, and colleagues administered the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to 936 randomly selected patients from 16 outpatient, day or residential mental health agencies in Chicago, comparing the results to data from the 32,449 participants in the annual NCVS conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The surveys of the individuals with severe mental illness were conducted by clinical research interviewers with master’s level training.
“Over one quarter of the SMI sample had been victims of a violent crime (attempted or completed) in the past year, 11.8 times higher than the NCVS rates; nearly 17 percent of the SMI sample had been victims of completed violence,” the authors report. “More that 21 percent of persons with SMI had been victims of personal theft (theft of an item from one’s person), more that 140 times higher than the NCVS rates. … Nearly 28 percent of persons with SMI had been victims of property crimes, approximately four times higher than the NCVS rates.”
“In the general population, crime victimization can cause anxiety, depression, substance use disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder,” the authors write. “Among persons with mental disorders, victimization can exacerbate existing disorders, increase the likelihood of service use and hospitalization, and substantially diminish quality of life. Moreover, victimization increases the likelihood of revictimization and is associated with perpetration of violence among persons with SMI, just as in the general population.”
“Among persons with SMI, violent victimization is far more prevalent (more that 25 percent within one year in this study) than perpetration of violence (4 percent – 13 percent),” the authors write. “Crime victimization among persons with SMI must be addressed the same way as other health disparities are addressed: by using all available tools and resources to reduce the risks and consequences of this public health problem.”
Sorry that I need to change the big umbrella of this blog since there are not much to talk about Antisocial Personality DIsorder and crime other than serial killing and drug abuse. From now on I will find informations and articles about mental disorder vs crime.
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that has a sign of having hallucinations, or unrealistic thoughts. How does this mental disorder relate to crime ?
In public, there are prevalent views that schizophrenia people are dangerous, often serial killer. In this entry, I am going to present an incident in USA.
In 2010, Mark Becker was found guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Aplington-Parkersburg football coach Ed Thomas. After the announcement of the sentence, Thomas's family had a statement on how the justice has been served. Yet it is ironic that Becker's family said the system failed Mark miserably in their statement. In Mark's family statement, his mum mentioned that it is impossible that Mark could have killed anyone in his "insane mind"
What the news stories did not provide was a complete picture of schizophrenia. It is true that a few people with mental disorder go out of control and commit horrible crimes, however a schizophrenia patient interviewed in the community where the murder took place said, often schizophrenia patients live quiet, unremarkable lives. Not many of them talk openly about their experiences, however public receive information from extreme cases like Becker's.
Imagine when you see UFO, knowing FBI is after you, and when you tell your family and friends, nobody believes in you. You might keep telling people around you what you saw, what you heard 10 minutes ago everyday, however when nobody believes in you, sooner or after you will stop talking and telling with people, and withdraw yourself from social interaction.
Publicity about violent schizophrenia patients dives a cycle of silence and misunderstandings. Every time the public heard about the illness (Schizophrenia or any mental disorder) being linked to a hideous crime, the stigma or label surrounding the illness gets stronger. That stigma and label makes people with mental illnesses even more resistant to openly speak about their less dramatic experience everyday, and have their own justice served.
Quoting from a psychiatrist at University of Iowa Hospitals, Dr. Michael Flaum said no one disputes that schizophrenia and similar diseases (that cannot communicate with other people normally.) can lead people to commit horrible, newsworthy crimes. Ironically, people with schizophrenia can be easy prey for criminals, as the illness often interferes with people socially abilities as aforementioned, which can leave them poor, homeless and careless.
Somehow, people are going to have break through the shame of mental illness. We need thousands of people out there working to bring the correct information to public eye.
Conduct disorder is a severe children and adolescence mental and behavioral problems. It is more severe than oppositional divine disorder. Simply put into words, most of the people view conduct disorder as delinquency behavior rather than a mental illness.
In Hong Kong, there are about around 6% of prevalence in conduct disorder among children aged below 18. Antisocial behavior is one of the contexts in conduct disorder. The behaviors include stealing, lying, disobeying, destroying properties, which are reported common by 50% of parents. Boys are more common in childhood, but relatively equal by adolescence.
The main difference between antisocial personality disorder and conduct disorder lies on the age of 18, one of the criteria of antisocial personality disorder. Below 18, children and adolescence would only met the criteria of conduct disorder.
Antisocial behaviors externalized by adolescence – a mix of impulsive, overactive, aggressive and delinquent acts, has independent sub-dimensions
Delinquent (rule violations)
Aggressive (Fighting)
Overt (Visible acts – fighting)
Covet (Hidden acts – Lying)
Destructive (Cruelty to animals)
Nondestructive (Arguing)
As we are quite familiar with antisocial personality disorder (If not, please refer to my earlier blog entry), there are some profile information of Conduct Disorder.
Children suffering from CD display at least one symptom before age 10, boys are more likely to be suffering CD. Also, those children do not display empathy, and concern of others; rather plain affect. About 40% of CD children develop into Antisocial Personality Disorder, a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of the rights of others, as well as involvement in multiple illegal acts.
Moreover, they tend to have verbal impairments, which contribute to the lack of development of self-control, emotion, and social cognition.
To conclude, additionally, the success of failure in treating antisocial behavior depends on the type and severity of child’s conduct problem. SES (Socio-economic status) is one of the factor of treatment as well.
Antisocial Personality Disorder can be concluded that, patients suffering from destructive thinking, abnormal perception of situations, and have no remorse. Also, they violate rules, have no idea of right or wrong. Another hallmark of patients having antisocial personality disorder is they are charming, however they treat people around them as instruments to achieve their goals. In the history, there were criminals with antisocial personality disorder committing serial killing. Applying the characteristics the serial killers look just like everyone else, but charming, polite, soft-spoken. In this article, a famous serial killer with antisocial personality disorder will be discussed: Edward Gein. He was the inspirational of several movies portraying serial killer: Psycho, The Texas chainsaw massacre, etc.
Most of the antisocial personality disorder patients do not show remorse of what they have done. If they get caught, for instance, they do not think there is anything wrong with the behavior, instead they will blame on themselves on getting caught, and how they will not get caught next time.
As the patients do not show remorse or regret to their behavior, serial killer with antisocial personality disorder treat their victims brutally. Edward Gein skilled his victims, exhumed the corpses, and used the parts of the bodies as decoration in his home.
Above only showed the behavior in common between antisocial personality disorder patients and serial killers. Is there any common cause and background between the two ?
Usually genes play a role in personalities. There are aspects of a person's personality passed on by his/her parents, such as optimistic, shyness. Nurture play an important part extra to nature. Environment or life situations, for instance childhood (Alcoholic parents, etc), relationship with families (Being abused), parenting style (Not Empathetic to own children). Most of the serial killers in history seem to have had a dysfunctional family structure and setting, and were abused in their childhood, either emotionally or physically. The abusive behavior received seems to activate some kind of psychological trigger in their deep down mind, increasing the feeling of inadequacy, low self-esteem, desire to hurt others as a form of self-release.
In the case of Edward Gein, he had an alcoholic father, domineering mother, a criticizing brother. His father was violent when using substances; his mother may had abused Edward when he was a child, while warning Edward about pre-marital sex. After his dad died, his mother took over the family, decided everything herself, and tyrannized Edward and his brother's life. His brother died in the same year with his mother's death, and Edward was suspected to be the one who killed his brother who criticized Edward for his excessive love to his mother.)
While he was the only one who left alive in the family, he started to withdraw from society and reality, and that was when his life became more and more bizarre. He dug up a woman body from a cemetery, using real body as experiment, and stored the organs for later meals. Most importantly in his background, he killed women mostly around the same age as his mother when she died.)
To conclude for this entry, there are risk factors for antisocial personality disorder patients to become criminals. Above, Edward Gein was only one of the symbolic serial killer in history of America. While researchers identified that they kept trophies of their crime to refuel their fantasy, they are still looking for an explanation of how fantasy wrap up the thrive in insolation, and the need to live the isolation out.
