Create a 5 page essay paper that discusses Mental Health and Crime.Download file to see previous pages... For example, there is this widespread belief that mental illness is associated with criminal t

Create a 5 page essay paper that discusses Mental Health and Crime.

For example, there is this widespread belief that mental illness is associated with criminal tendencies and violence. Whether this is a reality or a misnomer is not really clear. This paper analyses whether there exists any relationship between mental illness and crime. The paper also discusses the treatment options available for those that are criminally mentally ill. However, before discussing that, I will give a brief insight into mental illness. Mental illness Mental health problems (mental illness) refer to conditions that compromise the normal functioning of a person’s cognitive (brain) activities. It includes disturbances on aspects like mood, conduct and sanity. There are many types of mental illness, and these include. depression, anxiety, obsessive –compulsive disorder, phobias, bipolar disorders and schizophrenia (Gunn, 1977). Depression is a condition that lowers one’s mood making a person feels hopeless, unmotivated and worthless. This may also affect normal daily activities like sleep, libido and appetite. Anxiety refers to unrealistic worries concerning normal daily activities. This may affect one physically and cause many symptoms. Phobias on the other hand refer to unrealistic or exaggerated sensing of danger concerning various situations or objects. Bipolar disorders refer to the condition when one has alterations in mood, ranging from mania to depression. Schizophrenia is complicated since it has many symptoms ranging from hallucinations to delusions. However, patients suffering from these conditions normally have overlapping symptoms, hence, a patient with anxiety may have phobias, and vice versa. Mental illness and crime Various statistics have shown that there is a strong link between mental illness and crime. According to Peter Marzuk, editor of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, many studies have concluded that there is a indeed a strong association between mental illness and crime. He asserts that over the past ten years, evidence linking mental health and crime and violence has increased remarkably, and we cannot shy away from this issue. One study documented in the journal was conducted on a population of 324, 401 in Denmark. The researchers, Hodgins et al, documented psychiatric admissions up to the time when they were aged 43. Hodgins et al compared criminal records of people with a history of psychiatric illness with records of people who did not have this history. It was widely established that people with a history of psychiatric illness would be convicted of any criminal offense between 3 times to eleven times more than those with no past psychiatric illness, and this was found to be true for either sexes. These findings also concur with studies carried out in North America. There was a high incidence of mental disorders among incarcerated offenders. The same can be said of a Scandinavian study by Marku Erronen who conducted a psychiatric evaluation on 693 murders in Finland. They discovered that schizophrenia enhanced the incidence of homicidal violence 8 times in men and 6.5 times in women. These are just a few studies researching on mental illness and crime. There are many studies whose findings mirror this, and it is, therefore, evident that mental illness and crime are directly linked. The criminal justice system and mental health have for many years been intertwined (Buchanan, 2002).