Since the highly reported incidents of family murders in Calgary and Merritt, we have been asked by several people to comment on the risk of people with mental illness committing a crime.

The answers may surprise you.

On the surface, a relationship between mental illness and crime appears to exist.

Certainly, most of society holds the view that no one in their right mind commits a crime, especially a violent one.

Studies have shown that as many as 60 per cent of people in prisons have a mental illness.

It’s easy to look at this information as “proof” mentally ill people commit crimes.

The Institute of Psychiatry in London said it is slightly more common for people with mental illness to commit violent crimes than it is for those without diagnoses, but this could be more closely linked to their levels of poverty, social support and drug use.

It continues to note 95 per cent of homicides are not committed by psychiatric patients and most psychiatric patients are not dangerous.

Moreover, specific diagnoses like schizophrenia do not predict dangerousness.

The institute sums it up by saying: “The risk of being killed by a stranger with psychosis is around the same as that of being killed by lightning — about one in 10 million.”

The common perception that people with mental illness are dangerous may be partly because of selective reporting in the media.

A survey found that almost 46 per cent of all press coverage of mental-health issues was about crime, harm to others and self-harm.

It found all types of news reporting made a link between mental illness, violence and criminal behaviour.

It is also true movies and TV programs also draw this link for their audiences.

The CMHA is pleased to be involved with Kamloops This Week, where this is not the case.

In Australia, the government’s mental-health website reported an analysis of television programs in the U.S. found 73 per cent of people with a mental illness were depicted as violent, while 23 per cent of people were portrayed as homicidal maniacs.

When the same study analysed media reports about mental illness on television and in newspapers, it found nearly 90 per cent of stories depicted people with mental illness as violent and usually homicidal.

A study going back as far as 1983 showed no relationship between mental illness and general crime, but it is important to remember that experts say that other factors such as age, poverty, drug use etc, are linked to crime, and people with mental illness are often part of these groups.

In fact, mentally well people who abuse alcohol or drugs are 12 to 16 times more likely to be violent than people with a mental illness.

Young people are seven times more likely to be violent.

Feel free to contact us at kamloops@cmha.bc.ca with your suggestions for future topics and check out our website, kamloops.cmha.bc.ca.