Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention Advance Access originally published online on April 9, 2008
Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 2008 8(2):171-194; doi:10.1093/brief-treatment/mhn006
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Correlates of Crime and Violence among Persons with Mental Disorder: An Evidence-Based Review
University of Toronto
Contact author: Frank Sirotich, Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, 246 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1. E-mail: frank.sirotich{at}utoronto.ca.
The issue of crime and violence among persons with mental disorder is a subject of longstanding clinical and policy importance. Over the past 15 years, much research has been conducted on the relationship between mental disorder and crime and violence. This article is a review of the research literature on the correlates of crime and violence among persons with mental disorder. To facilitate this review, the literature is organized into 4 sections that encompass research on variables that fall into one of the following four domains: demographic variables, historical variables, clinical variables, and contextual variables. It summarizes current knowledge on the sources of criminal and violent behavior and attempts to reconcile disparities across studies by taking into account methodological differences and by considering the potential role of confounding factors that require attention in future research.
KEY WORDS: mental disorder, mental illness, crime, violence, review