[psych, law/gov, pubpolicy, Patreon] The Problem of Culpability in Mental Illness, Part 2

[siderea]

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Comment Catcher: The Problem of Culpability in Mental Illness, Part 2

[siderea]

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clarifying math question

[nuclearpolymer]

I am not familiar with the primary sources, so just talking about your summary. Is the statistical finding (A) 1% of the total number of criminal defendants use NGRI, or (B) 1% of mentally ill criminal defendants use NGRI? To me, it sounded like (A). So then we need other statistic, which is what percent of criminal defendants have mental illness. Maybe it's 100%, but probably not?
Because if, for example, only 10% of criminal defendants have mental illness, and we assume it's people from that pool who use NGRI, then the percentage of mentally ill defendants using NGRI is actually 10% and not 1%. But if 50% of criminal defendants have mental illness, then the percentage of mentally ill defendants using NGRI is 2%.

Re: clarifying math question

[siderea]

Yes, A; an excellent point.

As far as I know, nobody really has any idea what the rate of mental illness is among criminal defendants; I'm not sure how it would be possible to even get that information. What we have is the general population, and convicted criminal defendants.

In the general population, the percent incidence of mental illness bandied about is around 20%. I am full of reservations about that number. I have no idea how they got it, but I have suspicions: likeliest is that it's based on insurance claim data. Insurance claim data is, like, the least legitimate epidemiological data ever. Since insurers will only pay for their customers/patients to see a therapist if a psychiatric disorder is diagnosed, there is this huge economic pressure on both the patient and the therapist to exaggerate sx and escalate diagnosis. This results in some widely-believed-to-be-substantial yet unmeasured amount of over-reporting. Meanwhile, mental illness is still reasonably assumed to be radically under-presented for treatment,

legal versus social responsibilities.

[nuclearpolymer]

These posts have been interesting and informative, and I hope you will continue to explore the issue of violence and mental illness. When you get finished with that, I would also be very curious to see your discussion of other types of behaviors which come up (for most of us) a lot more in our daily lives. What I mean is that most people with mental illness, and most people who have social interactions with people with mental illness, may grapple with behaviors that cause social friction but are not at all crimes. So in daily life, there can be a question of how to think about friction causing behaviors which are affected by mental illness, in a way that is fair and compassionate. Perhaps you have some suggestions for ways of framing personal social responsibility and mental illness, which will make it easier for people to accommodate and cope with friction causing behaviors, to help people with typical mental illness symptoms stay socially integrated? I realize that you probably have a huge list of target topics already, but thought

[boobirdsfly]

I hope you write a book one day. You have a lot there that could turn into a book.

[siderea]

Yeah? Is it the idea of having hardcopy or the idea of it being more fleshed out or...?

[boobirdsfly]

It's the idea of it being more fleshed out and also that you have a lot of interesting and novel ideas (or unsaid by many) about working with violent offenders and the context of it.
Also, that you could become known for this to a wider audience if you published a book. :)

[siderea]

The book I really want to write is the Big Book on Anger. A lot of people have written books on anger, though, and I haven't read them all yet. I suspect most of them of being largely wrong.

I'd want to do it under my professional name, though.