Crime and Mental Illness Issues and Correctional System Issues

QUESTION

Explain why the media and much of the general public believe that crime and the mental illness are related to each other. Is this factual? Why, or why not? Provide examples. Also in a brief explanation discuss the correctional system, and what issues does the criminal justice system encounter?

ANSWER

Crime and Mental Illness Issues and Correctional System Issues

Crime and Mental Illness

Many people believe that persons having mental health issues are the most likely to commit crime. The media and the public relate crime with mental illness, often expecting offenders and perpetrators to be suffering from a mental illness. This is true in some cases, but not always true. The fact is that mental illnesses patients are much more likely to become victims of crime rather than the offenders in crime. The majority of crimes involving violence across the world are perpetrated by individuals who do not suffer from mental illness problems (Violence & mental health, 2018). This is mostly because mental illnesses patients are a threat to themselves and not to the people around them or the community. Mental health victims mostly injure or kill themselves. In the UK, approximately 90 percent of all the people who commit suicide are people having mental health problems (Violence & mental health, 2018).

The statistics disapprove of the notion or belief that mental illnesses patients are more likely to be involved in crime. Research and statistics collected in the UK show that more than 40 percent of victims of crime reported that their offenders were people under the influence of alcohol (Violence & mental health, 2018). In contrast, only about 1 percent of victims believed that a violent crime occurred as a result of the offender having a mental illness. The rate crime that is committed by people who suffer from a mental illness has remained very low since the 1990s, with alcohol and substance abuse playing a huge role in crime and homicides. This proves that the public’s belief that mental illness is related to crime is untrue. The media and the public seem to have this belief as a result of the failure to understand mental illness and how those living with it are affected. Mental illnesses patients are likely to cause harm to themselves but not the people around them.

A lot of the stigma that is associated with mental health is as a result of the tendency of the public to associate mental illness with dangerousness (Pescosolido et al., 1999). In addition, the media contributes to this belief by sensationalizing crimes committed by mental illnesses patients, such as mass shootings, and focusing on mental illness in the reports. The media often ignores the fact that a lot of the violence in society is perpetrated by people who do not suffer from a mental illness.

Correctional System Issues

The correctional system is an interlink of institutions and organizations that manage a nation’s correctional programs, such as probation and parole, as well as the prisons and correctional facilities. It is also known as the penal system and is part of the criminal justice system that includes other institutions such as the police and the courts. The correctional system deals with convicted offenders. Its role is to ensure that the sentence of an offender is carried out. There are many issues that the correctional system faces, the most common and current being mental illness issues (Haney, 2003), corruption, human rights violations, cybercrime, overcrowding of prisons, racism, and terrorism (Ross, 2008). There is a need for these issues to be addressed by the government and the institutions responsible to maintain the effectiveness of the system and restraint public trust in the system.

References

Haney, C. (2003). Mental health issues in long-term solitary and “supermax” confinement. Crime & Delinquency, 49(1), 124-156.

Pescosolido, B. A., Monahan, J., Link, B. G., Stueve, A., & Kikuzawa, S. (1999). The public’s view of the competence, dangerousness, and need for legal coercion of persons with mental health problems. American journal of public health, 89(9), 1339-1345.

Ross, J. I. (2008). Special problems in corrections. Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Violence & mental health. (2018, November 2). Retrieved October 4, 2019, from https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/media-centre/responsible-reporting/violence-mental-health-problems.