Experts continue to examine the complicated relationship between severe mental illnesses and criminality. To be clear, a severe psychiatric condition diagnosis does not automatically constitute a predisposition to violent or criminal behavior. Researchers have attempted to determine the actual relationship between the two. For instance, Halle et al. (2020) and Lu and Temple (2019) suggest there is no statistical significance between mental illness and crime, and no apparent correlation between mental health symptomologies and gun violence, respectively. Researchers such as Varshney et al. (2016) and Fisher and Liberman (2013) support that there are more negative perceptions and assumptions about the linkage between mental illness and criminality than actual reality. And Elbogen et al. (2016) have identified genetic, environmental, and dispositional factors that have been known to increase susceptibility to potential violence or criminal behavior, rather than mental illness.
We struggle to move past the notion that mental health conditions are linked to crime, especially as there have been increased mass shootings throughout the United States, with the perpetrator having a history of mental illness in most cases. Ghiasi et al. (2023) and Knoll and Annas (2016) purported that significant media attention highlights such atrocities and sensationalizes the perpetrators and their backgrounds, blurring the lines between criminality and mental health, especially when suspects' mental health history is heavily reported. Nonetheless, emerging research highlights that not only is there a clear relationship, but severe disorders with long-term effects have also been linked to criminal behavior and violence. According to Thornicroft (2020), “higher rates of violence perpetration have been identified among people with specific types of severe mental illness, particularly schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.”
My own recently published research identified posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), and depression comorbidities as the leading severe neuropsychopathologies diagnosed among military veterans exposed to combat and trauma, with PTSD and depression as the neuropsychopathological implicators of committing violent crimes (Chouraeshkenazi, 2023). My work also acknowledged that severe neuropsychopathological symptoms modify cortical areas of the brain—notably,........