General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I have a brother with schizophrenia and I am sick of the bigotry against the mentally ill [View all]Lee-Lee
(6,324 posts)So yeah, my experience tends to make me look more at correlation- x groups tends to do y more often.
I've also been the one who had to respond to a lot is schizophrenic patients who were actively trying to harm people (including me) or to the aftermath of where they had.
When I see numbers such as the above that 10% of convicted murders are diagnosed with schizophrenia while the disease only affects 1% of the population, or that the murder rate of the general population is 1 in 100000 but of that same population is 1 in 10000 for schizophrenics, it is quite a startling and significant difference. Sure, there are many other factors that also can be indicative of increased likelyhood to commit a crime, criminologists study them all, but you can't deny that the statistics show that schizophrenics are much more likely than the general population to commit a violent act.
Here is another source of data:
http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/consequences/1000-homicides.html
The statistics are pretty obvious, it doesn't take an advanced degree to see there is a significant increase in propensity for violence in that population.
I am NOT saying to lock everyone with schizophrenia up, far from it. Just saying we need to acknowledge this reality and make decisions about how we go foward accordingly- for example a schizophrenia diagnoses should be something a practitioner should be required to immediately report to NICS to bar that person from buying a firearm.