One of the things that people who write, and think, and talk about serious mental illness (meaning for the most part, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) often say is that people with these disorders are on average “no more likely to become violent” than people without these disorders.
Another thing that is frequently pointed out is that people with these disorders are actually much more likely to be the victims of violent crime than people without.
I think the latter is 100% true. But I am not sure about the former. What I do know is that there are an awful lot of anecdotes of both, and that we are pretty clearly criminalizing SMIs on a regular basis; that very sick people are being abused, arrested, incarcerated, shot and killed, daily, and that only a tiny smattering of those incidents make the headlines.
What I want to do here is try to keep track of all the anecdotes that pop up on my feed that involve people with serious mental illness either becoming violent, or falling victim to violence.
If you hear or read of any such incidents, please send me a note via the contact page.
Science & Story 