Mental Illness And Crime Is Vulnerability

Mental Illness has been prevalent all throughout our history from Isaac Newton to Abraham Lincoln to Sylvia Plath and so on. These illnesses can be as minor as a slight bipolar disorder or as severe as schizophrenia. In recent years, mental illnesses are becoming more prevalent in our criminal justice systems than anywhere else. Mental illness is becoming an association with crime and based on the information that has been found, this paper will attempt to further define the problem of mental illness within our criminal justice system and offer alternatives or insights as to how to possibly help with this problem.

The purpose of this research paper is to analyze the relation between gun violence and mental disorders and/or diseases. Within we will find if the violence in society is truly an issue, or if the real issue is the mental health and sanity of our society.

To understand what mental illness is you have to know what it means. Mental health is the state of our well-being. Mental health has to do with the mind. According to thefreedictionary.com mental health is “a state of emotional and psychological well-being in which an individual is able to use his or her cognitive and emotional capabilities, function in society, and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life”. Mental illness are behavioral, psychological, and emotional disorders that effect the mind. Mental illness is not something that should be avoided. There many different types of mental illnesses. There are also mental healthcare services that can help people with their mental illnesses.

Mental illness becomes a bigger issue with a long lasting cultural stereotyped due to the manner in which it has long been labelled (Miles, 1988). Although mental illness is very much connected to instabilities in one’s mental health state, as previously mentioned, a person can be mentally healthy but still suffer from a mental illness. What is understood by mental illness is that it

Mental health and the criminal justice system have long been intertwined. Analyzing and understanding the links between these two subjects demands for a person to go in to depth in the fields of criminology, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, because there are many points of view on whether or not a person’s criminal behavior is due to their mental health. Some believe that an unstable mental state of mind can highly influence a person’s decision of committing criminal actions. Others believe that mental health and crime are not related and that linking them together is a form of discrimination because it insinuates that those in our society that suffer from poor mental health are most likely to become a criminal due to their

This essay will look at the public understanding of the nature of mental disorder and to what extent it is associated with dangerousness and violence. The essay will begin by exploring the public’s perspectives and opinions on the matter and the impact that the mentally ill have on crime rates. Specific social perspectives will also be explored..

According to the Mental Health America website (2012), ECT is making a comeback. They assert with “the increase in the elderly population and Medicare, and the push by insurance companies to provide fast, “medical” treatment rather than talk therapy” (para. 6) has created yet another potentially dangerous field to navigate. Is it appropriate to treat these elderly patients with ECT when they have pre-existing medical conditions, specifically cardiac conditions where an electric shock could be fatal? Who is the advocate for the elderly widow without family to speak for her should she become so incapacitated by mental illness this becomes a viable option? This patient is vulnerable

Evaluation and treatment of the mentally ill population has developed from confinement of the mad during colonial times, into the biomedical balancing of neurological impairment seen in these modern times. There were eras of mental health reform, medicalization, and deinstitutionalization sandwiched in between (Nies & McEwen, 2011). Regardless of the stage of understanding and development, communities have not been completely successful in dealing with and treating persons who are mentally unwell. Fortunately, treatment has become more compassionate; social and professional attitudes have morphed into more humanistic and

Psychological disorders are common in the United States and worldwide. The National institute of mental Health discovered that, “An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.” Having an uncle who was diagnosed with Schizophrenia in 2003 has changed the way I see people with mental illnesses. After reading and watching the documentary about prisoners who have to undergo medication just to live a “normal” life has given me inspiration to come up with a few ways that will help our justice system deal with these sorts of individuals. While researchers are trying to come up with different medical measures to cure these diseases we as individuals can implement some procedures to help and support mental patients.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness a mental illness can be defined as “a condition that impacts a person 's thinking, feeling or mood and may affect his or her ability to relate to others and function on a daily basis.” Mental illness can be the result of multiple factors such as lifestyle, socioeconomic status, and genetics. There are a few mental illness that we primarily associate with people that commit these malicious acts such as; Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Dissociative Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Schizophrenia.

Over the past few decades, many researches have strived to test and explain the correlation between violence and crime and mental illness. Moore and Hiday (2006) assert that up 22% of inmates has a mental illness, sometimes containing more mental illness patients than many psychiatric units. Due to these statistics it is evident how important it is to understand the causes of the correlations between crime and violence and mental disorders. This proposal wishes to explain and understand the possible correlation and the reasons for such correlation between mental health illnesses and violence and crime. Further research to test

In his view, today, particularly in the affluent West, all of the difficulties and problems in living are considered psychiatric diseases, and everyone (but the diagnosticians) is considered mentally ill (Szasz 4). However, there is very little evidence supporting the popular view that for the most part "mental illnesses" are mental diseases; that is, of a legitimate biological, physiological, neurological or chromosomal nature. Instead, as Szasz writes, "what people now call mental illnesses are, for the most part, communications expressing unacceptable ideas, often framed in an unusual idiom (Szasz 19)."

Imagine a world where a third of the human population suffered from the same type of illness. Imagine a world where the government does little to help those who suffer from this terrible illness. Imagine a world where nobody acknowledged the pain and suffering that comes along with this illness. This is, unfortunately, the world we live in today. The illness is not one that others notice, but it can have terrible consequences to those who suffer from it. The type of illness are the ones that plague people mentally.

In recent years, there has been a higher prevalence of articles in the media in relation to mental illness and crime. This is due to a higher focus of research in the past half-century by criminal psychologists into the relationship between mental illness and violence. A conclusion has then come of this research that people with mental health problems are at increased risk of violent offending. This is determined through classification and misclassification of mental illness and clinical aspects of violence. However, there are also seen to be additional factors and trends that impact a person with mental illness’s likelihood of becoming a violent offender.

Mental illness is a disorder that is considered to be a type of interruption in a person’s emotions, thoughts, or behavior. Mental illness signifies to a wide variety of disorders which can range from mild distress to impairing a person’s ability to function in daily life. Signs and symptoms of mental illness can vary, depending on the particular disorder, circumstances and other factors. Whether a behavior is considered normal or abnormal varies on the person’s situation surrounding their behavior. Throughout history there’ve been three overall beliefs for the causes of mental illness. These three theories are known as supernatural, somatogenic, and psychogenic. Each one of these stands for how one is viewed when seen as having a mental illness.