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Thank you for sharing this publication which I’d not seen before. @AshCurryocd. This was written by @peterkinderman and @AnneCooke14 to journalists to influence how they report. I am just looking at it from the forensic psychiatry side. And there are two problematic statements. https://twitter.com/AshCurryOcd/status/1349026341321142277
1.“People with serious mental health problems are much more likely than others to be victims of crime”. 2 “Even when an offender has a history of mental health problems there are nearly always other issues that are more relevant in explaining their crimes”
“People with serious mental health problems are much more likely than others to be victims of crime”
This is, I’m aware, a common phrase used by patient activists in response to concerns raised about violence by mentally ill people. The phrase is true but is misleading.
This is, I’m aware, a common phrase used by patient activists in response to concerns raised about violence by mentally ill people. The phrase is true but is misleading.
The implication is that the statement rebuts the prior concerns about violence. But that’s wrong as the two statements are not polar opposites. A simple way to look at this is to replace some words and keep the basic argument.
“There is concern that men are more violent than women, young men in particular. Yet young men are more likely than women to be victims of crime”. The second point does not rebut the first. Young men are more violent than women.
People with mental illness are more likely to be violent than those with no diagnosis. In general, people who commit crimes are also more like to be victims of crimes.
The authors are university academics, and they really should know this. I think they do and are choosing to withhold information in order to make their rhetorical point.
“Even when an offender has a history of mental health problems there are nearly always other issues that are more relevant in explaining their crimes”. Again, there is some element of truth in this. While schizophrenia has a similar prevalence in men and women,
violent patients are far more likely to be male. Gender is important then, along with age and substance abuse and social class. That is true for most offending. And we deal with most serious offending by sending people to prison.
So, what they are arguing for is doing just that for most violent patients. They may allow some mentally ill people to be sent to hospital but only if there are no “other issues that are more relevant”. This is a reasonable and coherent position, usually associated with Ssasz.
This will be attractive to politicians wanting to cut costs, prison places are cheaper than hospital beds.
They are also mistaken on the legal side. In English law a Hospital Order can only be made when “the court is of the opinion, having regard to all the circumstances including the nature of the offence and the character and antecedents of the offender, and to the other
available methods of dealing with him, that the most suitable method of disposing of the case is by means of an order under this section.”
So, to send an offender to hospital. the judge has decided that “mental health problems” were “more relevant in explaining their crimes”.
So, to send an offender to hospital. the judge has decided that “mental health problems” were “more relevant in explaining their crimes”.
The authors are telling the press to say that those judges got it wrong. We have seen some press attacks on judges in the past year, it’s not something I’d want to be encouraging.
So in summary, this position is based on wanting more mentally ill people to go to prison, criticising judges and burying information about risks of violence.
