Crime and Mental Disorder: An Epidemiological Approach

The analytic framework of epidemiology can be used to study the relation between crime and mental disorder, distinguishing between the true rates of crime and mental disorder, that is, the rates at which crime and mental disorder actually occur, and their treated rates, that is, the rates at which the criminal justice and mental health systems respond to them. The conclusion that emerges is that rates of true and treated criminal behavior vary independently of rates of true and treated mental disorder when appropriate controls are made for such demographic factors as age, gender, and social class and for such life history factors as prior experience in the mental health and criminal justice systems. When these controls are not applied, rates of true and treated mental disorder are higher among criminals than among the general population, and rates of true and treated crime are higher among the mentally disordered than among the general population. When these controls are applied, the observed relations tend to dissipate.