Mental Health Association in New York State, Inc.
(Publication Archives)

Community Connections, Fall 2003

NMHA Speaks Out on Violence
An excerpt from the NMHA position paper, Constitutional Rights and Mental Illness

Violent crime is a serious problem in America. While it is true that the rate of violent crime continues to decrease, it is also true that we are a nation that in 1997 suffered 8.6 million crimes of violence, (1) which translates into one violent crime committed every 19 seconds.(2)

Against this backdrop of violence communities in Florida, Utah, Washington, D.C and others have recently experienced highly publicized violent incidents committed by persons living with some form of mental illness. However, studies continue to show that people with mental illness are no more violent than the general population. (3) Violent acts committed by persons with mental illness represent a small fraction of the violence perpetrated in our country, yet these acts are frequently highly sensationalized by the media and lead to the continued stigmatization of persons with mental illness. (4)

Furthermore, there seem to be factors other than mental illness that predispose persons to violence. In one study, it was shown that people with mental illness who come from violent backgrounds are often violent themselves, a finding that echoes the incidence among the general population. Additionally, a three-year, multi-site study commissioned by the MacArthur Family Foundation shows that there is no difference in the rate of violence between those discharged from psychiatric treatment facilities without substance abuse problems and other people living in the same communities who were also without symptoms of substance abuse. It appears that co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse significantly raises the rate of violence in both the patient and the comparison groups.
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(1) 1977 National Crime Victimization Survey, Bureau of Justice Statistics, United States Department of Justice.
(2) “Crime Clock”, 1977 National Crime Victimization Survey, Bureau of Justice Statistics, United States Department of Justice.
(3) R. Gelles, “Violence in the Family: A Review of the Research”, Family Violence, Second Edition, Sage, 1987.
(4) Henry J. Steadman, Edward . Mulvey, et. al., “Violence by People Discharged From Acute Psychiatric Inpatient Facilities and by Others in the Same Neighborhoods”, Archives of General Psychiatry, Vol. 55: 393-401, 1998.

posted 9/18/03