Effects of Serious Mental Illness and Substance Abuse on Criminal offenses

Effects of Serious Mental Illness and Substance Abuse on Criminal Offenses

Mental Illness and substance abuse what parts do they play on individuals who commit criminal offenses? We will be analyzing effects of serious mental illness and substance abuse on criminal offenses. According to Bartol & Bartol (2011) "mental illness is a disorder of the mind that judged by experts to interfere substantially with a person ability to cope with life on a daily basis" (p.209). Also, substance is defined as "a pattern of drugs use characterized by recurrent negative or adverse consequences as a result of repeated ingestion of the drug". (p.529). Substance abuse can be detrimental to individual using it and their immediate family, although; it can also drastically deplete communities' social and economical resources. We have to learn that crime is neither a mental disorder or necessarily is it a substance abuse problem.

According to Junginger; Claypoole; Laygo; and Crisanti (2006) this study was supported by grant SM-52121-01 from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration awarded to the Hawaii State Department of Health". And it was completed by the above names: John Junginger, Ph.D., Keith Claypoole, Ph.D; Ranilo Laygo, Ph.D. and Annette Crisanti, Ph.D. They focused on mental illness and drug abuse. The research we will analyze and compare functional outcomes of the individuals that were keep out of jail and placed into mental health and substance abuse services with the outcomes of control groups of individuals arrested and jailed.

There was a study of 113 participants that were post booking jail diversion and the participant's non diversion counterparts. According to Junginger; Claypoole; Laygo; and Crisanti (2006) "none of the 113 participants claimed to have been arrested for behavior that could be construed as a simple, unobtrusive display of psychiatric symptoms (talking to one, for example)". According to Junginger; Claypoole; Laygo; and Crisanti (2006) "the widely held belief that serious mental illness has been "criminalized" is based mainly on findings that persons with serious mental illness are more likely to be arrested (1) and are overrepresented in jails (2) and prisons". In this study we will look at important risk factors that may or not contribute to this illness such as catastrophic events, accidents, personal