Mental disorder and violence: An empirical picture in context

Background: The assumed relationship between mental disorder and violence is empirically contested and yet politicians remain concerned about the special threat which psychiatric patients allegedly pose to public safety. Aims: This paper aims to explore how this public policy scenario has arisen. Methods: The evidence about dangerousness in psychiatric populations is examined in relation to patient, ecological and socio-economic factors. Results: Given that the above evidence provides only weak grounds for concern about psychiatric patients being disproportionately dangerous, the skewed policy discourse noted in the background is explained by describing three contextualising factors: public prejudice; the widening remit of deviance-control by psychiatry during the twentieth century; and inconsistent societal sanctions about dangerousness.