Mentally Ill Not a Threat, Study Finds

Mentally disordered people are often portrayed as violent, but they pose no more of a crime threat than do members of the general population, according to a study from Chicago.

Linda A. Teplin, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavior science at Northwestern University Medical School, and her staff found in the study that the mentally ill composed less than 5% of all contacts between police and citizens.

If police were called on account of a mentally disordered person, she found, “it was not likely to have been a result of his or her having committed a crime,” but rather because others had expressed concern or because the person needed assistance.

The amount of crime actually committed by the mentally ill is not disproportionate to their numbers, Teplin wrote in the American Journal of Psychiatry--but they tend to be suspects slightly more often.