A Defence Of Mental Illness

Forget all the stereotypes of mental illness. It has no face. It has no particular victim. Mental illness can affect an individual from any background and the black community is no exception. African Americans sometimes experience even more severe forms of mental health conditions because of unmet needs and barriers to treatment. According to the Office of Minority Health, African Americans are 20 percent more likely to experience serious mental health problems than the general population. That’s why UGA third year Majenneh Sengbe is taking action as the co-founder of her upcoming organization Black Minds Daily.

Measuring crime is based on three main measurements; criminal justice system data, crime experience surveys and other sources called administrative data (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Firstly, crime first needs to be categorised into types of crime that is classified under the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Only the main and select few offences are reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in collecting annual reported crimes (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Through ABS, it collects crime data in different ways such as crime reports, victimisations surveys, administrative data (higher courts, magistrates and policing agendas etc.,) and self-reports (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Crime reports measure crimes such as homicide, robbery, rape, assault and more but is collected through police jurisdictions (Reid, 2012). The strength of crime reports provides additional information such as arrests, charges, officers assaults and characteristics of homicide victims (Reid, 2012). This helps to measure crime more effectively through gaining descriptions and knowledge of identifying crime and criminal behaviour more accurately (Reid, 2012). Administrative data is often helpful in collating data of sentences and jail sentences but fails to collect the ‘dark figure’ of crime (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). National Crime Victimisation Surveys (NCVS)

Deviant behavior is something that is usually disapproved and it is when someone goes against the ‘norms’ of society. According to the American Psychiatric Association (2015), mental illness is technically a health condition involving changes in behavior, emotion, or thinking. So where does mental illness come in to play with being a deviant behavior? Well, shockingly mental illness and deviance go hand in hand quite often. Everyone who is considered a ‘deviant’ may not be mentally ill, however, majority of people diagnosed with a mental illness are considered deviant. When sociologists study deviance, they are also studying mental illness. Mental illness is something that clearly will imply some sort of deviation from the defined norms of society.

'Imagine a health problem that affects one in six of us, that has a deep and damaging impact on our family and working lives, where effective treatments are available, and yet where only about a quarter of people with this condition get any treatment.' A strong case can be

When the phrase “mental illness” is spoken, the immediate thought that pops into the individual’s mind is the extremes such as Schizophrenia, or Bipolar Disorder. However, the majority of mental disorders fall into the spectrum of quite common disorders such as Depression, Anxiety, or Obsessive Compulsion Disorder (OCD). Why should

Duncan v. Louisiana 391 US 145 Findlay, M, Odgers, S, & Yeo, S 2014, Australian criminal justice, 5th edn., Oxford University Press, Melbourne, VIC.

Introduction The New South Wales (NSW) criminal justice system has been separated into “two tiers of justice”. The two tiers of justice involve the separation of lower and higher courts, where the lower courts are comprised of Local courts and the higher courts are comprised of District and Supreme courts. The local courts role lies mainly in exercising summary jurisdiction whereas more serious indictable offences are dealt with in higher courts. However, there is more than just a jurisdictional divide and there are other aspects that significantly distinguish the lower courts from the higher courts.

CNN. (2016). Olympic park bombing fast facts. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/us/olympic-park-bombing-fast-facts/ Davis, D., Fowler, N. B., Laney, C., Loftus, E. F., Knowles, E. D., Nelson, K. J. (2011). Change blindness can cause mistaken eyewitness identification. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 16(1), 62-74. Diamond, B. L. (1980). Inherent problems in the use of pretrial hypnosis

Through the course of time, mental illnesses have always been in existence due to varying factors and causes. However, as time has passed, the perceptions and available treatments for mental illnesses have also changed as new technology was developed. By looking at the treatments and perceptions of mental illnesses in the early 20th century, we can learn how to properly treat and diagnose not only mental disorders but also other conditions as well as show us the importance of review boards and controlled clinical trials.

Offenders are as much a casualty as those they have deceived, isn't that so? All things considered, they do what they do due to destitution, or awful child rearing, or lousy associates, emotional instability or the accessibility of a weapon, correct? Indeed, no, says clinical therapist Stanton Samenow. Culprits are how they are on account of that is the thing that they do. From his experience, Samenow contends that regardless of the possibility that a criminal has an emotional sickness, they carry out violations since they need to do as such. Heaps of individuals have emotional instability, yet not very many of them carry out wrongdoings.

For a considerable length of time, a standout amongst the most questionable themes in the lawful framework has been the mental illness. When somebody does a wrongdoing, he or she may utilize psychological instability as a defense. This is called Insanity defense. By attempting to utilize insanity defense, the claimed wrongdoer tries to get a reasonable trial. Society concurs with this rule. The issue is the place do we take a stand. Under what conditions is a man thought about crazy, and when they are not crazy. As they use mental illness as shields respondents from accepting full charges for their wrongdoing, as indicated by their psychological state at the time of their activities. However, because of this, it’s imperfect defense in which creates a loophole in our criminal justice system and that it must be

Introducing Mental Illness The social problem I have chosen to write about is mental illness. This problem is important to talk about “because of the number of people it affects, the difficulty of defining and identifying mental disorders, and the ways in which mental illness is treated” (Kendall, 2013, p. 227).

Classical criminology is “usually seen as the first ‘real’ criminology” (Tierney,2009), due to its emergence in the eighteenth century, heralded by scholars Jeremey Bentham and Cesare de Beccaria. It is centred on the ‘act’ rather than the ‘offender’, as well as the use of punishment as a deterrence.

"I hear voices" my brother shouted as he hysterically clutched his ears. He showed signs of anger and confusion as we did not understand what was happening. My family and I were in shock because here was my brother a retired army veteran going through a psychotic episode. After retirement,

Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in thinking, emotion or behavior or a combination of all three (What is Mental Illness). Mental illnesses are associated with distress or problems functioning in social, work or family activities. Mental illnesses take many forms, some are fairly mild and only interfere in limited ways with daily life, such as certain phobias and other mental health conditions are so severe that a person may need care in a hospital. Mental illnesses can affect anyone, regardless of your age, gender, income, social status, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, background or other aspect of cultural identity (What is Mental Illness).