Tired of criminals using mental illness excuse.?

A

Adam O

New member
i am so sick and tired of people convicted of violent crimes using my mental illness as their excuse to not get punished for a crime that they were convicted of. that's what gives people with LEGITIMATE schizophrenia, schizoaffective a bad name. i.e, virginia tech, fort hood, columbine, tucson shooting of rep. Gifford's, etc. now the federal/state governments and society has a bad stigma of us.
with all the crap of been going through that past 3+ years, a dozen of hospitalizations, painful psychotropic meds, 13 electroconvulsive therapy sessions, 3 months in a state mental hospital, 3 suicide attempts which of 2 i was in the icu. schizophrenic delusions of paranoia and possible voices in my head. i think i am LEGITIMATELY DIAGNOSED as a mentally ill schizo-affective patient. with everything I've been through, i think i've EARNED MY DIAGNOSES. i wish criminals was just man up and take personal responsibility for their actions.
 
You are generalizing. Are you to say that people with mental illnesses don't commit crimes? I happen to work with schizophrenics and while I do agree they are badly stereotyped to be violent when often times they are not - there are still lots of violent schizophrenics, most of which at one time or another have committed a crime.

Also, some crimes, such as murder, are abnormal actions. Meaning to commit premeditated murder you are likely to have some sort of mental illness.

On the whole though, yes mental illness is being used to avoid jail time by some people, but that the same time there are mentally ill people in jail. It's not fair, but it's an imperfect system. Diagnosing is inaccurate. It is easy to lie, easy to fake, and unreliable to diagnose.

While I can see how this can really frustrate you, it's sort of unfair for you to decide who really has a mental illness and who doesn't - because you can't prove it either way. Even if they tell you they aren't mentally ill, just faking it - how can you believe them? You can be a criminal and mentally ill and therefore you may have reasons to tell people you are sane when in fact you are not.
 
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