Mental Illness and Violence

       I'm sure you are all aware of the tragic shooting that occurred in a California bar last Thursday night which took the lives of 12 innocent people. If you saw any news articles, you've most likely read headlines and stories mentioning that the shooter was a veteran who might have suffered from PTSD. There is no current information on whether he was formally diagnosed with PTSD, but articles such as this label him as a “PTSD shooter”. Other articles such as this put PTSD in the headline, but then don't mention anything regarding what is known about PTSD and violent behavior. Unfortunately, this type of reporting is a recurring theme after every mass shooting, in which the media will use mental illness as the scapegoat. Based off current research, the idea that mental illness leads to violent behavior is nothing more than fake news. Not only is this faulty reporting, but it’s led a large portion of the public to believe that mentally ill individuals are more likely to act out in violent ways. This is detrimental to the rest of the population who suffer from these conditions, most commonly PTSD, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, because it impacts how they’re treated.

       So, lets get some things straight, individuals with a serious mental illness are not any more likely to act out violently than the average person. Of course there are many other variables at play that do increase violence when combined with a mental illness, such as substance abuse, comorbidity, personal stress, etc., but when just looking at an individual with some mental illness, this relationship holds true. In fact, studies have shown evidence of the opposite, in that mentally ill individuals are at least three times more likely to a be victim of violence rather than the perpetrator. This number is already high due to the frequent discrimination and difficulties of life that come with having a mental disorder, so being linked with people who commit mass shootings only increases the amount of stigma against them. Another study found that patients with a serious mental illness only accounted for 5% of all violent crimes in the US, much lower than the 18% of the population who suffer from these illnesses. In other words, even if every person with a serious mental illness was removed from society, violent crime rates would only fall by 5%. When compared to other developed countries, further data shows that the proportion of Americans with a severe mental illness is about the same even though the US has had many more mass shootings and violent crimes in general.

       All these studies, and many more, provide a lot of evidence that go against this belief still widely held by many people. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that the people who commit these awful acts of violence have nothing wrong with them, but rather you shouldn’t think any differently about someone who has one of these mental illnesses.

Posted by: Matt Murdoch (3)