Criminals and mental illness

[Unveiled Artist]

If they are "just normal people", then what is preventing me or my neighbour from committing horrible crimes?
They must be different, not like me - or I could be like them.

Because we all have a choice to hit someone to kill someone. So you, for example, can kill someone just as the convicted beside you. That doesn't mean you have a mental illness, it just means you made an intentional decision to harm someone just as your peer.

We're all human. How does a crime determine whether our intentional choices should be considered from mental illness or just a stupid conscious decision that winded us behind bars?

 

[Rye_P]

Most people incarcerated in America are in on non-violent drug charges. Poor people stealing for survival isn't a mental illness.

I don't see how this two lined up.

First, non-violent drug charges > So because there's no violence the perpetrators are not mentally ill? Or using drugs is not a sign of that?

Second, poor people stealing for survival. As someone poor and never resort to steals, this amuse me. So resort to something easy like stealing is not a sign of mentally ill perpetrators as well?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Just as an aside, not to derail the thread:
If you face capital punishment you want to plead insanity.
In all other cases you probably don't. When you are considered sane, you do your sentence and you know how long.
Insanity gets you into the asylum until healed - which can be longer than a sentence and you don't know how long it will take.

Yeah. Here's a video I was watching earlier.

It gave me flashbacks of a person I know in a similar situation but thankfully nothing illegal.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

None taken.

Because by wanting it happen is a sign of mental illness already.

And what part of my mentality that disturb you?

That would mean if you (or anyone) chose to kill someone now, you would have a mental illness to do so just by the type and nature of the choice only?

Mentality as in your (and those who think similar) your view or perspective of a given situation or idea. "The characteristic attitude of mind or way of thinking of a person or group." It has nothing to do with you personally but your opinion is highly common and hence the OP.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Yes, I think post 21 is badly misconceived. I must say had never come across this attitude but you have smoked out an example straight away!

Sure, there are undoubtedly social, psychological, financial, medical, etc. factors and pressures that make people more likely to commit certain sorts of crime. But that in my view is a long way from a blanket view that anyone who commits a crime is mentally ill. That flies in the face of everyday experience. After all, most people, subject to the same pressures and factors, do not commit crimes.

Once in a blue moon I get a strike. Yes. Factors can make it more likely to cause people to kill. Your last part is yes, we all subjected to similar pressures, so unless one has been already diagnosed with an mental illness, they had the same decision as we have more or less.

 

[Rye_P]

That would mean if you (or anyone) chose to kill someone now, you would have a mental illness to do so just by the type and nature of the choice only?

Mentality as in your (and those who think similar) your view or perspective of a given situation or idea. "The characteristic attitude of mind or way of thinking of a person or group." It has nothing to do with you personally but your opinion is highly common and hence the OP.

I have the urge a lot of times, and when it happens more than twice, that's when I decided to seek help. Those with mental illness won't seek help, they will just kill.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I have the urge a lot of times, and when it happens more than twice, that's when I decided to seek help. Those with mental illness won't seek help, they will just kill.

If you killed more than once, how would you know you had a mental illness if there were no other actual psychiatric symptoms involved?

Why not just take responsibility for your actions if you do so with sound mind as you have now?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Or using drugs is not a sign of that?

Drug use isn't an indication of mental illness.

Those with mental illness won't seek help, they will just kill.

Just, wow. ****ing, wow. For your information, none of my mental health center clients have ever tried to kill someone. I have never tried to kill someone. Those with mental illness very rarely do.
That sort of idiotic claim does severe damage to those with mental illnesses. It's why it's stigmatized. It's why we don't talk about it. Because people like you promote some seriously derranged nonsense.

 

[exchemist]

Once in a blue moon I get a strike. Yes. Factors can make it more likely to cause people to kill. Your last part is yes, we all subjected to similar pressures, so unless one has been already diagnosed with an mental illness, they had the same decision as we have more or less.

To be clear, I'm not saying we are all subject to similar pressures. For instance I am lucky: no financial worries, no stress from bad relationships, no unstable medical conditions, no drug habit, no diagnosed psychiatric disorders (whatever some on this forum might occasionally think! ), no alcoholism. But what I'm saying is that one meets plenty of people who do suffer from one or more of these pressures who nevertheless manage to avoid committing crimes as a result of them.

So it's one of those situations where it seems to me one needs to distinguish between factors that may explain conduct and factors that excuse conduct.

 

[Heyo]

That is actually false, and that sort of malarkey is a reason why mental illness is so heavily stigmatized.
Ultimately, most of those with a mental illness are not criminals. Many criminals are not mentally ill.

Depends on your definition of mental illness. When you include reduced mental capacity (IQ below ~75), many criminals are mentally ill. The numbers vary between about 80 and 90 for the average prison inmate with one study having 26% of prisoners with an IQ below 80.

 

[exchemist]

Depends on your definition of mental illness. When you include reduced mental capacity (IQ below ~75), many criminals are mentally ill. The numbers vary between about 80 and 90 for the average prison inmate with one study having 26% of prisoners with an IQ below 80.

That's a good point. At what point does very low IQ count as lack of full mental capacity? But I think the courts take this into account too, at least in extreme cases, when sentencing.

P.S. When two of my brothers shared a house in a poor district of London they got burgled by their next door neighbour! Dumb enough, you might think, but then it turned out that he chose to burgle their house while he was awaiting trial for another burglary! Clearly this guy had no ability to think about the future consequences of his actions. I don't know what his IQ was, but I have read that ability to foresee future consequences and plan a bit is one sign of functioning intelligence. He didn't have it, apparently. My brothers felt a bit sorry for him: all he stole was a ghetto blaster, but he was going to rack up a serious criminal record as a repeat offender, completely pointlessly.

 

[Rye_P]

If you killed more than once, how would you know you had a mental illness if there were no other actual psychiatric symptoms involved?

Why not just take responsibility for your actions if you do so with sound mind as you have now?

"I have the urge" > You might skipped this part.

Drug use isn't an indication of mental illness.

Just, wow. ****ing, wow. For your information, none of my mental health center clients have ever tried to kill someone. I have never tried to kill someone. Those with mental illness very rarely do.
That sort of idiotic claim does severe damage to those with mental illnesses. It's why it's stigmatized. It's why we don't talk about it. Because people like you promote some seriously derranged nonsense.

For someone work in mental health center, you're kinda unstable.

You're speaking from the perspective of your clients, which at one point or another, is seeking help voluntarily. And I'm speaking from those that refused to seek help, or only realized that once they do something against the norms.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

For someone work in mental health center, you're kinda unstable

You don't even know me.

You're speaking from the perspective of your clients, which at one point or another, is seeking help voluntarily. And I'm speaking from those that refused to seek help, or only realized that once they do something against the norms.

You said those with mentall illness wont seek help, they will kill you. But even those who refuse to seek help, they very rarely are violent or dangerous. Even those who are legally required to get help (Ive had them as well) rarely will try to kill you.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I have the urge a lot of times, and when it happens more than twice, that's when I decided to seek help. Those with mental illness won't seek help, they will just kill.

I guess another way to put it is, if you went through with your urges that doesn't mean you have a mental illness anymore than the urge to get chocolate from the vender machine and caving in on a sweet tooth. So, urges doesn't mean anything if one hasn't be diagnosed with a psychiatric illness beforehand that may constitute the urge to get chocolate, kill, or so have you.

So, in this case, since an urge in itself is not a mental illness (like the candy example), you still have a choice to fall into that urge. That. Or if you did not have an urge and did so with a sound mind, how does that (eating chocolate or killing someone) constitute you having a mental illness?

 

[Rye_P]

You don't even know me.

Kinda obvious from the swearing?

You said those with mentall illness wont seek help, they will kill you. But even those who refuse to seek help, they very rarely are violent or dangerous. Even those who are legally required to get help (Ive had them as well) rarely will try to kill you.

I don't remember saying that they will kill me?

Those with mentally ill minds tends to do things that against the common norms > This are my point.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Drug use isn't an indication of mental illness.

Just, wow. ****ing, wow. For your information, none of my mental health center clients have ever tried to kill someone. I have never tried to kill someone. Those with mental illness very rarely do.
That sort of idiotic claim does severe damage to those with mental illnesses. It's why it's stigmatized. It's why we don't talk about it. Because people like you promote some seriously derranged nonsense.

A lot of people with mental illness actually do seek help especially when those with severe mental illness have a good support network and can reflect on the nature of their symptoms. I assume most of us do and those who "don't" isn't more so because they choose not to but because they need treatment so they know themselves what's best for them.

I said wow too.

 

[Rye_P]

I guess another way to put it is, if you went through with your urges that doesn't mean you have a mental illness anymore than the urge to get chocolate from the vender machine and caving in on a sweet tooth. So, urges doesn't mean anything if one hasn't be diagnosed with a psychiatric illness beforehand that may constitute the urge to get chocolate, kill, or so have you.

So, in this case, since an urge in itself is not a mental illness (like the candy example), you still have a choice to fall into that urge. That. Or if you did not have an urge and did so with a sound mind, how does that (eating chocolate or killing someone) constitute you having a mental illness?

I don't find you can compare between those two.

And urges is an early sign, you need to be able to say that there's something wrong with yourself instead of justified it based on your own perspective. And unfortunately, that's what people tends to do, they're afraid to admit that they need help.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Kinda obvious from the swearing?

Nope.

I don't remember saying that they will kill me?

You said it here.

Those with mental illness won't seek help, they will just kill.

Those with mentally ill minds tends to do things that against the common norms > This are my point.

That's not indicative of mental illness either.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And urges is an early sign,

Far more likely just a sign you're human and still alive. Urges to do things we shouldn't is a human thing. Christians call this temptation. Freud described it a conflict of id, ego, amd super ego. We are animals, and we have animal brains. Having violent thoughts and urges isn't what gets people sent to anger management, it's consistently acting on those urges to the point it's causing problems (like frequently being in fights amd over reacting to minor disagreements).

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Depends on your definition of mental illness. When you include reduced mental capacity (IQ below ~75), many criminals are mentally ill. The numbers vary between about 80 and 90 for the average prison inmate with one study having 26% of prisoners with an IQ below 80.

Facts are, the mentally ill as a whole group typically and generally are not criminal or violent. IQ level considerations or not (and it's not a valid definition as those with low and high IQs can have mental illness), crime is not common among the mentally ill.