Jolly Jazz

Psychosis is a mental disorder. It occurs when the mental disorder gets too severe in which emotions and thoughts are very impaired. This causes a person to lose contact with external reality. Doctor's refer psychosis as a symptom not an illness. It can also cause delusions and hallucinations and severe major mental illnesses. The causes of psychosis may be attributed to the following conditions: physical sickness, abuse of substance, severe stress of trauma or even mental illness. Psychosis is categorized in to two, namely: organic and functional psychosis. The abnormal brain functioning that is induced to a person due to physical abnormality. It is mainly caused by the organic diseases in the brain. While those that are characterized by hallucinations and delusions are brought about by psychiatric related disorders are known as functioning psychosis. The essay below will show how psychosis relates to crime. Could psychosis cause a person to commit crime? And if so to what extent is it analyzed and measured? Is it an acceptable defense for a person to commit crime?

According to a research carried out by the Clinical Psychological Science and the University of California shows that psychosis and crime are not strongly linked. They used secondary data from the MacArthur Risk Assessment Study. The MacArthur was a study that included over 1000 violent crime felons. It was carried out approximately 10 weeks after they had come from jail. The offenders were classified according to the level of violent crime they had committed.

Some of these crimes include causing physical injury to person, use of weapon, aggravated assault by use of weapon and sexual assault. It also considered the participants other personal disorders and traits, the behavioral pattern of a person and finally cognitive abilities that may be exhibited in their behavior. MacArthur data showed that ten percentages of the offenders committed fifty percent of the crimes reported. This first proved that crimes are committed by repeat offenders. Of the repeat offenders of these crimes half were diagnosed with symptoms of psychosis which included hallucinations and delusions. This report shows that the bond between the psychosis and crime committed was very weak.

The percentage of the repeat offenders that had experienced psychotic symptoms before committing the crime was eighty five percent whereas the percentage of those who had not experienced psychotic symptoms was fifteen. Those that had experienced psychotic symptoms were likely to have experienced schizophrenia and bipolar disorders accompanied by other mental disorders. Those that had not experienced psychotic symptoms often had antisocial tendencies, and low sense of verbal intelligence.

Historically psychosis was the alleged to be the main cause of crime. People are instilled with fear of psychotic people due to the relation of condition with violence and crime. One of the reasons that make the relation of psychosis to crime and violent behavior is because like most physical illness, psychosis causes inability to act aggressively or in any criminal way. It is only in few conditions that and a person is unable to act sanely.

These conditions include paranoid schizophrenia which causes persecution thoughts in these people. This condition is often caused by the side effects of drugs such as amphetamines and also alcohol. When alcohol is abused over time it may cause the person to be violent over time. Another condition is epilepsy but a rare kind. This form of epilepsy acts as an organic illness that may cause a person to harm others indiscriminately.

Those that may cause murderous and sadistic acts are the sexual deviant persons. But this condition is very rare. This kind of condition was linked back to the island of the South Pacific.

A person is judged by the following factors in order to estimate the potential of a violent crime. One is the previous acts of violence in the person's history through the person's records. It is prove that the more violent and frequent a person's past is the more likely it is for the person to be violent again. Defects in personality manifest themselves such as wanton destructiveness and cruelty and at some point may cause the person to willful injure others.

Secondly is the detection and analysis of menacing behavior. This is lack of impulse control resulting in the person striking at out anyone when aggravated. They may punch walls, break valuables such as furniture and even cause more destructive harm on property. These kinds of persons exhibit particular signs so as to be identified as potential crime offenders. These signs include threatening of others, losing control, shouting and quarreling a lot.

Thirdly is the trail of activities that involve engaging in places that crimes and violent encounters occur. Such places may include rioting mobs and bars. These places are characterized by violence and lack of respect of laws and rules. This may also be attributed to the person's family. For instance if the family is occasionally fighting and vices such as theft are tolerated. The treatment psychotic symptoms are not only based on drugs but on counseling. A therapist must be assigned to the offender in this case it might be a lawyer, parole officer or even a family member. The goal of this is to ensure that offender does not strike out emotions but verbally express them to the therapist. The person creates a bond with the therapist where they can openly discuss the patient's crime and violent activity. One of the main principles of handling someone is ensure that the person does not cause harm to self or to even other people. The law enforcement officers should also be keen and alert and stop these kinds of activities from happening. Crime and violent behavior should to be overlooked and should be handled in the right way by assessing and controlling.

The research on the relationship between crime and psychosis has not yet been saturated completely. The government and other institutions should offer support by resources allocation to researchers and institutes that aim to research more on the psychosis condition.

The government should also educate people on the psychosis topic and advice against discrimination of people experiencing psychosis symptoms not rather support them and help them. More institutions for supporting people with psychosis should be increased since the number is also getting bigger. Campaigns and charity should be encouraged in order to motivate those suffering privately to feel accepted and also free with people. People should be made aware that psychosis is not a condition rather but a symptom. People should also be advised against alcohol and drug abuse since it can cause one to be violent and commit crimes. Families especially the parents should be encouraged to teach good moral values to children and act as good role models to the children and being against all vices such as violence and theft.

Conclusion

It is clear that psychosis crimes relationship' has a very weak bond. People who often engage in crime are not mostly affected by psychosis. People with psychosis therefore should not be judged and discriminated on being violent and criminals. When a person commits a crime and use the psychosis excuse as a defense, experts in psychology should be incorporated in order to analyze and evaluate these persons.

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