The Violent and Illegal Behavior of Mental Patients Reconsidered

Abstract

Although advocates for the mentally ill assert that mental patients are inappropriately stigmatized as dangerous, research indicates that former mental patients have higher arrest rates than the general public. Because of the limitations of arrest-rate studies, however, alternative hypotheses have suggested that the apparent dangerousness of mental patients is a methodological artifact. We compare mental patients and never-treated community residents on several official and self-reported measures of violentlillegal conduct. Mental patients have higher rates on all measures of violentlillegal behavior, and these differences cannot be accountedfor by sociodemographic and community context variables. A scale of psychotic symptoms is the only variable that accounts for differences in levels of violent! illegal behavior between patients and never-treated community residents. Although mental patients have elevated rates of violentlillegal behavior compared to nonpatients, the differences are modest and are confined to those experiencing psychotic symptoms.