Offending Behavior and Mental Illness: A Critical Analysis

This essay delves into the complex relationship between offending behavior and mental illness, examining the roles and functions of psychiatry in diagnosing, treating, and preventing mental disorders. It explores the critical understanding of mental illness and its potential relationship to offending, including major diagnostic categories like psychotic and non-psychotic disorders. The essay critically evaluates various approaches to mental health and offending within a theoretical framework, including the medical model and social constructionism. It also discusses alternative ways of understanding mental illness, such as social causes like poverty and class, and forensic psychiatry, offering a comprehensive analysis of the subject.

Running head: THE LINK BETWEEN OFFENDING BEHAVIOR AND MENTAL ILLNESS
THE LINK BETWEEN OFFENDING BEHAVIOR AND MENTAL ILLNESS
Name of the student:
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Introduction:
Psychiatry is a medical branch that focuses on the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of
mental disorders, emotional disorders and behavioural disorders. Along with time and the
changes in the surrounding, a profound practice is noted (Kales, Gitlin&Lyketsos, 2015).
Medication seems to dominate psychiatry. According to conventional psychiatry approach, the
disease in the patient is the significance. They aim to find the medication to reduce symptoms.
They believe lifelong disease management since the cure is not possible. Also, the side effect of
this process is inevitable. One of the most discussed topics in psychology on a daily basis is the
relationship between offending behaviour and mental illness (Appignanesi, 2009). It is not a
recent subject of debate but exists for a long time. As early as the fifth century BC, the famous
Greek philosopher, Socrates has opined on the same aspect. According to him, the low rate of
mental disorder in the city is the cause of a low crime rate in Athens. There have been several
pieces of research to find the connection between mental illness and offending behaviour. The
essay aims to discuss the same, the effects of conventional psychiatry when accounting for the
link between offending behaviour and mental illness. The essay involves a critical understanding
of mental illness and its potential relationship to offending. Also, a range of different approaches
to mental health and offending within a theoretical framework will be discussed in the essay.
Critical understanding of mental illness and its potential relationship to
offending.
The role and function of psychiatry as a process for identifying and
diagnosingmental illness.
A psychiatrist is a doctor that holds the degree in psychiatry with an experience of
residency training. A psychiatrist performs several actions that are responsible for diagnosis,

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treatment and prevention of mental health disorders. The psychiatrist also prescribes medicine
and somatic therapy and function as per the patients suffering from mental health issues. While
discussing the roles and functions of psychiatry, it would be noteworthy to mention some of the
unique function of a psychiatrist in primary health care (Britain, 2001). A psychiatrist evaluates
difficultly, compounded psychiatrist challenges, they understand complex medical issues in a
psychiatric context and prescribe psychiatric medication and treatment regimens when in
complex situations.
Individuals, families and communities are often faced with experiences that change their
behaviour or mental state of mind. The psychiatry process is an integral part of health. The
psychiatrist has a facilitative role in assisting individual, families and communities. They help
them to mobilise their resource in the promotion, restoration, maintenance of their mental health.
Psychiatry is all social as well as biological (Leff, 2008). The brain and social environment are
connected to each other resulting in a behavioural pattern. Psychiatry process is to help people
overcome their mental health issues with the help of scientific methods that are known to the
psychiatrist. Through the interaction with the patients and the applying the psychological
theories, psychiatrists are able to understand the causes of the behaviour change.
Specific role and nature of the forensic element of the psychiatric service.
Forensic psychiatric is a particular area of identification as well as discussion along with
the guidance in regard to issues related to mental health and law. Hence, it is important as well as
fundamental to be aware of legislation that is responsible for the behaviour of the different
culture. In the psychiatrist service, the forensic elements are a relationship, individual and
cultural diversity, legal and ethical standard policy, professionalism and the type of scientific
knowledge and methods (Littlechild&Fearns, 2005). A person’s relationship has a significant
role to play in their mental condition. Similarly, culture has a significant role as well in people’s

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behaviour. People are brought up with several beliefs and customs depending on their culture.
Therefore, it is essential for the psychiatrist to understand the cultural background of the patient.
Also, the forensic aspect involves scientific knowledge and methods (Gudjonsson&Haward,
2016). There is certain limitation for every approach depending on the amount of treatment a
person is capable of in taking. Depending on the same, a psychiatrist cannot apply any method or
trial as per the doctor’s wish. There is a need for the psychiatrist to follow the law and abide by it
for the patient’s safety.
Identify the major mental illnesses as diagnostic categories.
The major diagnostic categories are formed by making a division between all possible
principal diagnoses into 25 mutually exclusive diagnosis areas. Psychotic disorders are the
diseases that can cause delusions, hallucinations and related such as bipolar disorder and
schizophrenia. Non-psychosis disorders are the issues that are related to neuroses such as
depressive disorders and anxiety. Some of the major mental illness as diagnostic categories are
anxiety disorders, mood disorder, schizophrenia, psychotic disorders, dementia, and eating
disorders. Insight is significant in psychiatric illness. A person suffering from mental illness
need to have particular attention to insight. Major illness that is majorly linked to offending are
the both psychotic and non-psychotic disorders such as panic attack, anxiety, bipolar disorder
OCD and schizophrenia.
The links between mental illness and offending
It is very well known that mental health disorders or mental illness are a potential risk
factor for violent behaviour or offending behaviour. However, the link is not entirely explained
or given reason appropriately. According to studies, there are patterns found that can explain the
relationship between offending and mental illness. For pattern one, the offenders are the people
for whom crimes is a natural response to psychotic symptoms. This involves mostly delusions or

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hallucination. Today, more than 45 million people Americans have mental illness in any given
year. However, it is only half of that particular number that seeks treatment.
Patten two is offenders commit crimes since they are motivated by compulsive desires. For
example, by paraphilia the sex offences. And other offences that are considered as pieces of
evidence of disorders (Kendall&Hammen, 1995). Pattern three, the offenders that possess
personality disorders. Crime is only an example of a maladaptive pattern of voluntary and
knowing behaviour for them. In the pattern four, offenders have coincidental mental that is not
related to crime. In the pattern five, offenders become mental patients as a result of their crime.
Such as people who dissociate by seeing what they have done, people who become depressed in
the prison and many other. Even though the offenders cannot be separated from the behaviour
and it cannot be determined by the categories if the offenders are genuinely responsible for their
behaviour, there are some unknown proportion of pattern one. In the patterns, one offender has
the criteria of insanity. These factors can again be debatable based on evidence or perspectives
(Hagell, 2002). Since a psychiatrist is a doctor that holds the degree in psychiatry with an
experience of residency training, they are able to study the behaviour and help provide
justification of the offender’s behaviour.
Critically evaluate a range of different approaches to mental health and
offending within a theoretical framework
Psychiatry is one of the branches of the medicine that generally focuses on the diagnosis,
the treatment and the prevention of the mental, behavioural and the emotional disorders of
human (Vigo, Thornicroft & Atun, 2016). It is an integral part of the medicine that is the
integrator of both psychological and biological treatments and diagnosis.

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Psychiatry as an area of medicine and consider the medical model of psychiatry
In the context of the study of the conventional psychiatry, the medical model in
psychiatry has become one of the most discussed and controversial topic. With the perspective
from the evolutionary biology and from the philosophy of science, the model of psychiatry
projects the synthesis of social and biological concepts. Coined by psychiatrists R.D. Laing, the
medical model embodies the fundamental assumptions regarding the medicine that drives the
research and theorize the psychological and the physical issues depending on the remediation
and causation (Stevens & Price, 2015).
Biological reductionism, the term refers to the way that the psychologists initiate towards
the reduction of the behaviour towards a physical level. The concept is furthermore explained in
the terms of neurotransmitters, structure of the brains, neurons and hormones (Goffman, 2017).
The biological reductionism is one of the major factor criticizing the medical model since the
model fails to accurately describe the actual occurrence of psychotherapy together with
dominating the field of questionable ties with science, health and medicine.
Social constructionism as a means of critiquing the medical model
Social constructivism is the theory of the knowledge in the domain of communication
theory and sociology that initiates in the examination of the development of the understanding of
the shared assumptions regarding reality. The theory furthermore poses as the means of
critiquing the medical model of psychiatry targeting the critical explanation regarding the
categories of the mental illness as the concrete entities in the theoretical explanation. The
concept of the social constructivism opposes the concept as explained in the theory since it has
an impact on the mental disorders towards constructivist rhetoric. The model rejects the idea
regarding the sociology of mental illness with the effective classification and the embeddedness
regarding mental illness as one the pure social construct (Kriegler, 2015). The concept of the

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mental illness has long been argued as either a social product or a social construct. The central
philosophical debate over the notion of the mental illness is not regarding the existence but
regarding its nature or the definition. The theories of mental illness classifies the range and the
pattern of behaviours in case the people with mental illness are majorly responsible for the
actions symptomatic of their illness from the historical decade. Various psychologists have
raised concern and arguments regarding the constructivism of the mental illness and its range of
the acceptable behaviours.
Thomas Szasz and Michel Foucault in this particular context raised challenged regarding the
dominant perspectives within the domain of the psychiatry. They argued against the myth and
the concept of the mental illness convincing that the concept was unsatisfactory and vague. In his
work, he argued that it does not classify issues related to psychology as the illness and diseases
in the context of mental illness involving conceptual and logical error. Analysis of Foucault
projects the anti-foundational critique holding that the medicine of psychiatry has fabricated the
set of delusions, panaroids and acute schizophrenia(Kendall & Hammen, 1995). There lies some
of the essential degree of convergence among the claims of both Foucault and Szasz in case of
both castigate psychiatry for authoritarian practises. The psychiatrists furthermore denoted the
notion of power in their work projecting their clams regarding the domain of psychology.
Alternative ways of understanding mental illness such as social causes including
poverty, class, life problems.
Furthermore with the consideration of some of the other alternative ways of the
identification and the understanding of the mental illness are the life problems, the social causes
if poverty and more. According to research study by Rivas et al. (2017) there lies an increasing
evidences of the link among the degrading and poor mental health status and the experience
related to deprivation and poverty. As per the work of Lang, Though the connection is complex,

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the epidemiological data related to the mental illness among the various socio economic groups
projects the nature of the mental disorders and the relation to the life issues, class and poverty.
The survey data from the psychiatric epidemiological surveys reported higher rates of the mental
disorders among the poor and the low life style communities. One of the major illness is
schizophrenia and some of the related psychiatric disorders as well. The national comorbidity
survey revealed that the individuals with a very low socio economic status generally
demonstrated with high tendency for mental illness and bipolar affective disorders. The issues of
poverty has also been linked to the multifactorial event of suicide, highlighting the significant
risk and stress related to the financial hardships, unfulfilled work expectations and lower
educational level. It is thoroughly evident that mental ill health and poverty are connected
together in a complex manner. Inadequate housing , malnutrition and poor life styles correlates
the level of poverty envisaging the costs in the terms of long term treatments and loss of the
productivity (Mueller, Callanan & Greenwood, 2016). In the concept of the psychiatry, the
mental illness has been considered as a disease. Various researchers argues on the consideration
of the mental illness as the social reactions. In the context of the mental illness, R.D . Laing
illustrated extensively on the mental disorder and his experience of psychosis. In his work, Lang
noted is views regarding the causes and the treatment of the mental illness that went against the
psychiatric orthodoxy by undertaking communications or expressions of the individual
separating the underlying disorders of mental health.
Role of Stigma: Furthermore one of the most controversial topics regarding the context of the
mental illness is the role of stigma. People suffering from mental illness experiences the attached
stigma and the discrimination as one of the major difficulty that make them harder to recover.
Stigma furthermore make the people suffering from mental illness uncomfortable and
threatening due to the attitudes within the societies that projects the symptoms of

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psychopathology fostering discrimination and stigma towards them. The notion of stigma in the
society has higher chances to lead towards social exclusion (Corner & Gill, 2015). Furthermore
the environment can also affect the mental health. Various researches till the date has majorly
focused on the association of the mental illness and the elevated risk of the crime increasing the
vulnerability of the crimes.
Examples of younger people
In the context of the mental illness and crime, both men and women with any of the
recorded mental illness showed higher rates of being subjected to crime. Children exposed in the
harmful environmental and physical factors also possess higher tendency to get involved in the
crimes together more of having mental illness. As per the current survey report, the rate of the
crimes involving the children with mental disorder is the highest in number. Mental disorder is
one of the main reasons for the cause of the crime (Cook et al., 2017). The heterogeneous aspects
of a person including the environmental factors, the socio economic status of a person and the
emotional turmoil’s as some of the major causes increasing the rate of crimes among the children
with psychiatric disorders.
While the concept of the psychology is common in the criminal population, the
psychiatric disorders preceding the criminal behaviors are majorly found among the young adults
and the children of the current decade
Conclusion
Thus it can be concluded that psychiatry is an integral part of the medicine that is the
integrator of both psychological and biological treatments and diagnosis. The medical model of
psychiatry denotes certain defect regarding the consideration of the psychiatry as the social
construct and consider it as the disease. The report highlights the concept of psychology in the

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light of the social acceptance and the stigma related to it as faced by the individual in the current
society. The essay furthermore highlights the concept of the social exclusion and the connection
among the level of the mental illness and the rate of the violence of crimes which is mostly
prevalent among the children in the current generation.

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