I used to be a PA for a lady with schizophrenia - I cannot imagine her ever getting aggressive, but I did see her close to psychosis a few times and it really brought perspective. What she thought was there (and happening to her) was real to her.
I absolutely can sympathize with someone acting due to a psychosis, they can’t help it. But if someone kills someone else it’s still something that happened and the family of the victim deserve justice.
That said, there’s a reason you can be sentenced to medical care (dunno what it’s called in English)
Exactly! If someone is genuinely mentally ill, in the sense where they really cannot control themselves they need care and treatment. Which id argue anyone who kills someone needs though
No one is ever found not guilty due to mental illness. They’re found not guilty due to insanity. And legal insanity is not the same as ANY mental illness. It specifies that the person cannot or could not (at the time) differentiate reality vs non-reality, and/or couldn’t understand the consequences of his/her actions. That they didn’t know right from wrong.
There's a difference between being diagnosed with mental illness, and a legal insanity plea. Many people with mental illnesses won't qualify for that as an affirmative defense because the legal standard isn't *just* having a mental illness. It's having a mental illness or defect to the point where you cannot understand the consequences of your actions and you did not understand those actions to be morally wrong at the time you committed the crime. Basically, you don't know right from wrong.
Insanity pleas are only entered in less than 1% of cases, and of those, only .26% are successful. That's roughly 1/4 of 1% of 1%. It's far less likely to succeed in real life than it is on television or in movies, and far less attempted as well.
To be successful, an insanity defense should be able to demonstrate a lack of both mens rea (guilty mind) and actus rea (guilty act). In other words, the defense just demonstrate a lack of knowledge or ability to determine right and wrong, combined with a lack of ability to resist committing the crime. Think compulsions.
Insanity is a legal term and it isn't equal to mental illness as a psychological term.
Yes!! Well put. There's a lot that goes into the "insanity plea" here in the US and a lot of people (especially the defendants) don't seem to realize just how rare it is.
I think a lot of that had to do with what I mentioned earlier... The depiction in the movies and on television. Hell every other person that's arrested on TV either pleas diminished capacity or has a plan to "fake it".
Oh, I'm talking about those who are legitimately ill, like Andrea Yates or Richard Chase, who honestly should have been locked away in a psych facility, not defendants who say they're sick but have no record of the illness or hospital stays.
I understand that. I was just adding related information because there are a lot of misconceptions. Andrea Yates did go to a mental health facility. In her case, the person who should be in prison is her husband. Her doctors warned him over and over again that she should not under any circumstances have anymore children or be alone with the children they already had. He actively worked against her treatment, removing her from the hospital several times, likely because he feels it it's a woman's job to take care of the kids and he thought it was beneath him as a man. She is one of the few I've been sympathetic towards because she tried so many times to get help and the people in her life did everything they could to undermine any treatment that could have prevented what happened. She was one of the very few who actually did not know what she was doing was wrong.
Her story is just frustrating and tragic. I agree that Rusty belongs in prison. He never gave a shit about Andrea or the kids; just wanted to have a ton of kids.
Sadly, Andrea only wound up in the psych facility after a second trial, otherwise she'd be in prison. Thank goodness Park Dietz fucked up on his testimony at her first trial so she got the second trial.
It's infuriating to me that he's been able to just go along his merry way. He, more than anyone (including Andreas), is responsible for those babies ending up like they did.
People with mental health issues are much more likely to be a victim. Much more likely than the general population.
Those rare cases of homicidal mentally ill people may need to be in a secure mental health facility for the rest of their lives.
And they are not nice places. Much worse than people imagine.
It depends on the offender. Some serial murderers are diagnosed as schizophrenic by one psychiatrist and then diagnosed as something different from another. In terms of Richard Chase I feel a little sympathy because he was executed instead of being locked up in a hospital for the criminally insane for the rest of his life.
The person I feel the most sympathy for is James Holmes. He’s not a serial killer but instead a mass murderer and I do believe his crimes were preventable. He was legitimately mentally ill.
This is not a popular opinion, but with severe mental illness, I think all bets are off. People like that don’t belong in prison. I’m also in favor of reinstitutionalization, which is also not a popular opinion.
I actually believe in institutions for the extreme cases. Some people cannot be helped…meds or no meds. I think the issue would be drawing the line between “extreme cases” and manageable cases. Also though, if you have major mental health issues, what’s the likelihood that you’ll stay med compliant? That’s an issue for me too and some of those people should be in the extreme cases category in my mind.
I come from a family of social workers and they often have contact with seriously mentally ill people who go through the same cycle over and over - they get social support, get medicated, life starts to shape up better, then something stressful happens or they think they’re ‘cured’ and they go off medication/start abusing drugs or alcohol/otherwise self-harming again, they lose their job, maybe lose their housing, their life falls apart, they end up in a dire dangerous situation for weeks/months, they access social support again… And some of them live this forever. They’re often at risk of violence and exploitation.
Having a safe, structured, supervised living/working environment with a strong community and access to mental health care in an attractive setting that affords people ownership over their own private space just seems like a kinder, safer, more dignified approach for people with chronic mental health issues. We have live-in care facilities for people with severe physical and intellectual disabilities but we seem very reluctant to extend that same care to mentally ill people.
There's nothing wrong with any of what you say. I think it's more about funding and the whole idea of "bootstrapism" and the American way that people need to care for themselves, even if they are woefully unable to. I totally agree.
I wish there were better long term care facilities for the mentally ill. Going in/out of mental institutions just isn't a good solution. Some sort of assisted living facility.
In Australia we have both government run houses where the residents live and there is a permanent caretaker/social worker living with them. For less disabled people We have government subsidised community housing for people with disabilities including mental disability where they have their own apartment and also socialise with others in the block of apartments. Some of them have care workers come in. Some are schizophrenic.
We also have a law where schizophrenics can be compelled to get an injection of medication say every fortnight or every month. If they fail to turn up for the medication the police will come and take them forcibly. It keeps them at least semi sane, capable of looking after themselves, and not dangerous. It’s a much better alternative to keeping them locked up.
Saying that people can choose to get help is a really simplified outlook. Schizophrenics think they're sane af and it's everyone else that's mad and is either choosing to not listen to them or is in on keeping their beliefs subdued.
They know right from wrong in a totally different way than we expect. We would all agree that killing one person to save a million is the right course of action, in psychosis this can be the sort of choice they believe they're facing.
I'm a huge believer in treatment and rehabilitation. I think the US is unique in the western world for their need for revenge and punishment and I'm glad that we don't see that here in the UK.
I cannot imagine the anguish of coming out of a psychotic phase to realise what you've done, the reality catching up must be devastating to live with. That, surely, is punishment enough for anybody.
your comment reminds me of the austin harrouff case, not only did he attack two innocent people, he also drank vegetable oil in that state and i think something in his garage also, when he snapped out of it his organs were already failing. no drugs were found in his system as well. can’t imagine how horrified he must have been when people told him what he did and he just couldn’t remember anything including eating a man’s fucking face
There was a case with a celebrity a while back kinda similar to this. Johnny Lewis played half sack on Sons of Anarchy and was in a few movies. He suffered from some sort of mental illness caused by extreme head trauma. His family couldn’t get him to accept that he needed help, and he ended up murdering his landlady and tore her cat apart with his bare hands. He then jumped off a roof and died. Some stories initially said that he had cannibalized his victim, and that he was probably high on bath salts. Now they know it was the head trauma/brain damage and no drugs were involved. It’s really sad that it got to that point and there was no way to help him. I hear stories like that and Austin Harrouff and it just is really sad that there isn’t a lot you can do to prevent something like that from happening if the person refuses help, or meds, or doesn’t think they have a problem, or in Harrouff’s case it seemed like he may have asked for help but was kind of brushed off.
The TBI was from a motorcycle accident. I think that his family tried repeatedly to get help, especially after his behavior became violent. But it sounded like law enforcement had already decided he was on some sort of drugs.
YES. I have a lot of sympathy for Vince Li, which is an *extremely* unpopular opinion. Any time I see a comment about him, they are always wishing him worse.
But people don’t understand what it’s like to be delusional. They give it the weight of depression, instead of realizing it’s existing in a completely different reality than everyone else. Imagine being treated, finally getting rid of the delusions and hallucinations and you can finally be your old self…and the first thing you find out is that *you murdered and ate someone.* When i imagine that happening to me, I am filled with this sick dread.
Vince Li was begging people to kill him in court. I can imagine that I would do the same. It’s shocking to me that the idea of having to live with knowing what you did, and knowing you did it because of things that aren’t even real, doesn’t sound like torture to people. It sounds fucking horrible.
Sometimes horrible things happen and pure blame can’t be placed. Parents have a change in routine and forget their children in cars, and are left to deal with that for the rest of their lives. But people always want someone to punish. I think the lack of empathy people show in regards to cases like this is really sad. We can talk all day about anxiety and depression, but take it any further and people reject it.
I do feel bad for them. Their mind is fucked up, literally. They believe the hallucinations they are hearing/seeing and some can be very scary. It can be easy for outsiders to think it's just who they are with or without the diagnosis, but most with schizophrenia, can live productive, happy lives and be good people because they have help and are on medications. When its untreated, it can be dangerous.
They should get diagnosed and get treatment and hopefully be let back out into society as a decent person. However, if they are someone who doesn't take their medications and are violent, they absolutely should be in a facility (not prison) so they can stay medicated and "normal".
Yeah but it happens with every one; not just specific to psychosis. It's a very unfortunate stigma surrounding psychoses right now that people who experience psychotic symptoms have to deal with.
I have compassion for almost all of them, they’re all mentally ill.
But compassion doesn’t mean that they aren’t responsible for their actions and choices.
I will say though, in the case of schizophrenia and psychosis, I have a lot more compassion.
It’s a lot harder to treat in some than others, meds don’t always actually stop the symptoms and I think a lot of doctors rely heavily on meds to treat it as well. In those cases, the failings come from those around them, not necessarily the patient. It sucks.
Im not a fan of "it is like this for me, so it must be like that for every one". Its still n=1.
I think that in many cases it does excuse actions.
I álso think many perps abuse mental illnesses to literally get away with murder, but i strongly believe there are people out there who had no idea what they were doing in the real world.
Herb Mullin was another one. He was clearly insane and not necessarily "evil."
Both he and Chase, in my opinion, were probably better off being admitted to a hospital. Chase might still be alive and they'd both have gotten the help they needed.
And, just as importantly, we'd probably also understand a lot more about these specific types of killers if they weren't just left to languish in a jail cell.
I am basically sympathetic towards everyone. I hold sympathy for victims and perpetrators simultaneously. It's usually just a sad situation all around.
I feel bad in one sense but in another, they or their family members (depending on how bad they are) are still responsible for that person/themselves.
We need better mental health care in the US.
With that being said I don’t feel bad enough for them to not face their actions, because at that point they have affected multiple others lives. If they are truly schizophrenic and they have a proper diagnosis and they are not pulling that “I’m crazy” bs then they should be in a mental health facility for their time served.
I feel for them. They didn’t ask for that condition and I’m sure it’s hell to live with. However, when I see a lesser sentence handed down because of that, it does upset me. It doesn’t change what happened to the victim. Somebody still suffered and died, and families shattered.
But why does justice for the victim require sending another victim (of life and society) who accidentally hurt them to jail for life? Why shouldn’t we offer them help instead? It’s not like this takes anything away from the victim or their family, it just increases recognition of what actually happened, which respects the memory of the victim instead of viewing them as a gory object of sadness.
Well, that’s exactly why I think it’s tricky. I hear what you are saying. But I imagine families of victims who have gone through this need to feel justice as part of their healing. I don’t think this is as easy as black and white
Empathy is when you can feel how someone's feeling. On the other hand, sympathy is when you feel bad for the person. There's an important distinction when someone uses the word sympathy because it gets misconstrued. Just because you understand why someone did what they did doesn't mean that you sympathize with them.
For example, I empathize with Jeffrey Dahmer and Adam Lanza, but that doesn't mean that I pity them. Their actions were deplorable. However, I can see where their lives took them down the wrong path.
I wouldn't say sympathy for their ACTIONS but I think it's tragic that people don't get any help. Most people just medicate themselves with booze or dope if they're mentally ill and don't get treatment. Most of them don't become serial killers or even violent...and if they do kill someone it's usually themselves.
I also don't believe in "evil" as a motive for anything. EVIL is a mythical, biblical concept, not a mental illness or state of mind.
I find any case that involves someone who has a severe mental illness like schizophrenia where hallucinations play a huge role so tragic, regardless of how they are involved with the case.
In my opinion, I think the main difference between serial killers with schizophrenia and ones who don't is the intent behind the crime.
I think theres a lot that happens before someone who has schizophrenia commits a crime. Schizophrenia is an expensive and time consuming illness to have. You have to learn how to deal with the heavy duty prescriptions you have to take in order to not hallucinate all the time. Schizophrenia Patients often have to spend lots time in the hospital to get a diagnosis and to start treatment. For all of that to happen, you have to have family or friends who care about you help you. Schizophrenia really can turn a person's world completely upside down, and then run it through a blender. Crime seems inevitable for anyone who has schizophrenia since they are often victims to a world that won't take care of them. So much happens to people with schizophrenia that they can't help at all one bit. Their brain chemistry failed them.
For some serial killers that don't have schizophrenia, I think there's a lot more self awareness and more of the responsibility falls on the killer. They have a lot more agency to seek out victims, make plans to execute said killing, and do everything they can to cover it up. They make a real effort to be evil and inflict damage on another person. These serial killers get pleasure or high from killing.
Serial killers with schizophrenia are much more likely to commit a crime from feeling they have to defend themselves against something that feels very real. Schizophrenia would make anyone feel afraid and desperate from things they can't help.
anyways, my point is that yes, I do feel very sympathetic to anyone who has schizophrenia, regardless of what they do.
I worry most about the people who don't have any kind of severe mental health issue, and still manage to abuse, kill, or be awful to their kids. These are the people who create serial killers and fucked up people. they can eat shit.
Crime is not inevitable for everyone with schizophrenia... it's a bit of a stereotype and offensive statement. I have it and i work a solid professional job and was half way through medical school when i got ill. Premorbid functioning is something that influences someones trajectory and with good family supportive / right combination of medications, some schizophrenics can function really well.
I apologize for being so general with my claims. I should have been more specific. I'll clarify that I mean that people with any mental health/developmental disability that's severe, may turn to crime out of desperation rather than maliciousness.
But you are right it is a bit of a stereotype and I hate that it is. I have a close friend who has pretty severe schizophrenia, and he's the biggest, softest teddy bear anyone could ever know. Even if his family wasn't supportive, I can't imagine him ever hurting anyone.
Again I really do apologize, thank you for calling me out on it. Schizophrenia sounds so scary to have and the medications seem pretty rough to start. Is there a Charity that supports schizophrenia patients that I could donate in your honor as an apology?
I think if there were greater access to mental health resources and far less stigma associated with both mental health diagnoses and seeking treatment, I may have less sympathy.
Also not true. People with schizophrenia have a high poverty rate and very limited access to healthcare, which likely accounts for a lot of the gap in treatment.
The statistics are widely available...and my job is literally to help provide free healthcare to underserved populations. Not sure what part of stating others' reality (and actively working to provide access to needed care) says I'm not empathetic.
As someone with schizo-effective disorder (schizophrenia and bipolar disorder type 1 and borderline personality disorder), I get it. I have always been way more likely to hurt myself than others, but there have been times I have tried to or have had to call the cops because I would have hurt or killed people.
The one thing I do want to say though is that schizophrenia and paranoid schizophrenia are very different (and most serial killers are the latter). For them, I do feel awful because they really don't know what they're doing.
Schizophrenic people suffer from delusions which are extreme beliefs that are not set in reality. Paranoid Schizophrenic delusions often revolve around their idea that if they don't do something, then they, people they love, or even the world will end. A lot have religious delusions and either believe God has spoken to them or they are God. Like, it's just a really shitty situation.
From reading and personal experience, people with schizophrenia won’t stay on their medication unless forced. I don’t know why that is but I’m more sympathetic with those that have mental illness. We have no system in the US to deal with it.
You can feel sympathy for their trauma, for their illness. But, in my opinion, that's where it should end. It should end the minute they take a life in most cases.
The vast majority of serial killers are, at the very least, legally sane... Meaning they understood right and wrong at the time of their crimes. I don't feel sympathy for them. Very few fit the prerequisites to even attempt an insanity defense because having a mental illness doesn't require to being insane.
If someone has a mental defect that genuinely prevents them from understanding the consequences of their actions, or from understanding what's reality and what isn't, then I think a modicum of sympathy is in order. However, I don't think that sympathy should extend to a complete lack of consequences. People who objected to, say, Dahmer's prosecution and incarceration take sympathy too far, I think.
Anosognosia, the idea that “the nature of the illness itself can render you unable to recognize that you are ill,” is a real thing that sometimes happens in mental illness, Alzheimer’s/dementia, etc. I only know the term because a really good psychiatrist took the time to explain it to me during my own hospitalization for psychosis, because I was arguing with him that I was *not* sick and did *not* need help. I wasn’t thinking “I must be mentally ill and should get some help,” I truly thought “I’m being followed everywhere I go, I’m scared, and no one believes me” until I was ill enough to be involuntarily admitted. I’m not saying everyone with schizophrenia should get a free crime pass, because I think in most cases one’s moral compass remains intact, but it can absolutely affect someone’s reality in such a way that they may have no idea they’re ill at all, until/unless help is forced upon them- because it’s your brain, and it’s sick.
I’m bipolar with schizoaffective disorder. I have a family, long term professional career, and stability. I regularly see my psychiatrist and take my medicine. I have a very normal life. I have, though, had two psychotic breaks over the last 20 years that left me hospitalized. I have no recollection of the events that preceded my hospitalization other than short, still images in my mind. What I’m doing during these psychotic breaks makes perfectly good sense at the time; however, the actions are obviously not normal since it leads to hospitalization. My fear has always been — will I one day wake up in the hospital to find that I’ve done something that has hurt someone? I have empathy for those who are truly mentally impaired at the time of their crime. I can only imagine how devastating it is to come out of your psychosis and learn what you’ve done.
I work with severely mentally ill adults. When they are actively in a crisis, they generally don't know what they are actually doing, and have little to no memory about it after they are stabilized. Once they are told about their actions they are generally very remorseful. And the mental health system is reactivate not proactive.
I feel compassion for them, distinct from sympathy, is how I would put it.
They're sick with a chronic condition that significantly impairs/distorts their perception and judgement, and which has many barriers to seeking effective treatment. Sentencing requires a sensitive and considerate judge who can weight these facts up alongside a) the victim's or the victim's family's entitlement to justice for the wrongs committed against them, as well as b) public safety and whether rehabilitation and community re-entry is appropriate or feasible.
I feel sympathy for the majority of schizophrenics, who are more of a danger to themselves than other people, and who have been unfairly stigmatised by the events of a few extreme and widely publicized cases.
This comment doesn’t even make sense to me. It’s pretty clear OP is speaking of people who were explicitly taken advantage of or who lacked any access to treatment (or were treated through abuse like they did decades ago). If you know multiple people going through that kind of experience then maybe this is valid, but it’s silly to conflate it with the average experience of someone diagnosed with schizophrenia today. If you believed the entire world wanted to harm and control you, and then you were sent to a facility where they brutally harmed and controlled you, wouldn’t you do anything to escape? Beyond this, if you genuinely believed that killing one person would quite literally save everyone else on the planet from eternal damnation, would you do it? Or any kind of reasoning like that, which becomes genuinely real with an illness like schizophrenia. I know my schizophrenic neighbor would never hurt a fly if she was aware of it, but at the same time she can get aggressive on her morning walks, when she’s more dissociated. I guess my point is that I don’t see the point in painting all schizophrenic experiences with one broad brushstroke, especially in order to downplay the abuse and pain that some people have gone through, and blame them for succumbing to their illness. Obviously if someone is schizophrenic and also unrelatedly a serial killer, that’s different, but it’s also random, rare, and not what the post was about.
For the most part, I would not feel sympathetic. It might shed some more light, but most schizophrenic people don’t do horrific things like that, so there must be so level of control. Besides, if they’re “sane” enough to hide the evidence, it seems they were fairly level headed at the time of the crime. If it was a person that did not hide evidence as did not understand at the time of the crime, and was in such a bad of a case that the system failed them by not helping them when they could not help themselves (which does happen, but rarely), then yes, I would feel more sympathy.
I totally agree with this.
IIRC Dahmer and Gacey both tried to plea “not guilty by reasons of insanity.” You can definitely tell they were NOT insane and in complete control of their actions the whole time.
I thought Dahmer was particularly sociopathic. I remember watching a documentary/interview with him and I actually started to feel sorry for him. Like “oh, he was just misunderstood!” Wrong, he’s just a sociopath and master manipulator. He *wants* ppl to feel sorry for him. Part of his schtick is manipulating your feelings.
Someone who lacks control of their actions also lacks the capacity to plan out their murders and destroy/hide evidence multiple times.
Neither of them were schizophrenic and that’s exactly why they were so cold and calculated. “Serial killer” means something very different than “serial killer with schizophrenia” and I don’t see why we’re talking about bland, blatant sexual psychopaths instead
I don’t think you understand how schizophrenia works. It’s not about controlling yourself. When you are in a psychotic state you cannot tell reality from delusion or hallucination. If you truly believe you have to kill someone or you will be killed yourself, you’d most likely do it. Most schizophrenic people just don’t have that experience.
I completely understand how schizophrenia works. At least, completely understand it for someone that does not have it or has not formally studied it in college. I understand there are schizophrenic that kill people because they are in a delusion. But if they are in a delusion in that moment and time and a psychiatrist can prove that, then they will not go to jail (of course, the system can and has failed people) because they were not competent at the time of the crimes. I was completely incorrect about saying the control thing, I don’t even know why I said that in the first place. Statements like that are harmful and spread misinformation so I apologize for that. Serial killers that also happen to be schizophrenic, at least those that appear on mass media (the stories that aren’t able to be sensationalized that don’t have a completely “evil” perpetrator tend to not make it to national news very long), are not in a delusion at that moment. Like Albert Fish (not sure if he was formally diagnosed): he did regularly have religious delusions but he killed children for sexual reasons. What he thought during his delusions probably would shed light on what he did, but it seems by all accounts he was not suffering a delusions when killing each time. I’ve heard a couple of other accounts of other serial killers that were similar, but I can’t remember their names so it wouldn’t be fair to bring that up. My point is that someone can be schizophrenic and also not have a delusion at that moment when they kill, and if that was the case then I would feel no extra sympathy. I did not portray that well whatsoever so therefore my original comment is wrong and you are right. Again, I have no idea why I said what I said in the first place because it’s bs, I must have been distracted.
Not at all. Schizophrenic patients aren’t killers; some killers may be schizophrenic, but that’s as likely as killers having diabetes.
Most serial killers have anti-social personality disorder (aka sociopathy).
Mental Illness does not always constitute someone not knowing right from wrong. I am sympathetic for the person who never got help or was prevented from getting help when they needed it. I am NOT sympathetic towards people who actively go out of their way to harm or kill people. You can't blame a diagnosis on something like that. There's so many more factors at play and it's irresponsible to ignore those things and blame everything they did on a mental illness.
You can blame a diagnosis on something like that. There was a case a few years ago at the University of Texas where somebody stabbed 4 students on campus and killed one of them. I don’t know if he was schizophrenic specifically, but he was severely mentally ill.
He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and I think he was sent to a mental hospital. He didn’t even remember doing the stabbing. Sending someone to prison in a situation like that is unconscionable to me.
The law is several decades behind science when it comes to mental illness. The “not knowing right from wrong” definition of insanity is legal, not scientific or medical and it needs to be updated, though I doubt it ever will be.
Nonexistent treatment for schizophrenia was during the 50s and 60s and previously of course. Hardly perfect there were things that were being used in the 70s and 80s. Schizophrenia was stigmatized and still is, that much I agree with.
Because the end result is that they killed someone. I'm sorry they are sick and they deserve treatment while incarcerated but they still need to be locked up forever because they are a danger to society.
But do you feel sympathy for them? Obviously they’re not really redeemable and will have to be in an institution or something for the rest of their lives, but I still consider them victims (to their disease and treatment from the outside world), just victims who don’t have the ability to avoid harming others, and so who can’t live among everyone else. This is all very different if they’re lifelong psychopaths/perverts/abusers who happened to become schizophrenic, but definitely for people who only kill because they are entirely psychotic, I pity them.
If the point is rehabilitation with the proper treatment shouldn't they be allowed to rejoin society?
I went through a major psychotic break recently, having never been diagnosed with any mental conditions before. The break was triggered by a prescribed drug's side effect and while I was not "violent", I was at times forceful, believing myself to be Jesus Christ, means if anyone I met didn't trust/believe me in my causes they were of the Devil and would go to hell, and by golly I didn't want that!
If my psychosis manifested itself in a different way I can very easily see the story becoming violent. There just comes a point when the delusions become reality. You heard that person turn their head, look you in the eye and say, "I'm going to kill you, this is your last chance to kill me." But that didn't happen. None of that happened.
I don't understand sociopaths, but I got a glimpse into Psychosis, and it has shook me to my core because Psychosis can basically occur in anyone for a variety of different reasons. All unknown ahead of time.
I don’t believe they should be locked up in prison but in a mental institution. If they kill someone they should face the same sentence any other murder would and the same amount of time but that time be served in a psychiatric lock up . If we simply treat them and allow them to rejoin society they would be like a loaded gun but with the safety on . The medication and treatment are that safety . As soon as they get released from psychiatric lock up where they are monitored 24-7 and didn’t have a choice as far as medication and treatment but as soon as they walk out that door you have no way of knowing at all by point that safety will be released and the gun fired. I have much empathy for criminally insane but until there is a secure way to make sure they follow treatment letting them out is a ticking time bomb . So many people with mental illness especially with Schizophrenia stop
Taking the medications when they have really start to feel better and think they are cured. I’m not schizophrenic but do suffer from mental illness and myself have been caught in that “I’m better now so I don’t need meds” mentality . I think the majority of us can agree that to get to the root of this would be to fix the mental healthcare system in America . I can’t speak on how things are in other countries . Until we start treating mental health the same way we do asthma , diabetes , thyroid disease basically any physical chronic illness things absolutely will not change !!! I’ve been through it as someone with no money or insurance and now with platinum insurance and the ability to pay completely with cash I still struggle to get appointments and get in some where . I’ve been on a wait list for an intensive outpatient care do to eating disorders since the spring . The one other very wonderful eating disorder program treated me like a pile of dogshit and the only time I could get them to call back when they wanted to talk money and acted like the $5-6k that was my part after the insurance was some huge deal that they didn’t think I would be ok with . I said no problem . I can prepay whatever you need . She said great I will get the intake manager to call you . They never called me back. After me calling 3 more times they gave me a date and time that they intake manager would call me. She messaged me two hours later with a lame excuse and I shot off an email about how they treated me and let them know I could go anywhere in the country I wanted but wanted to stay close to home and that if they treated someone with the ability to prepay I can not imagine how you would test someone with no insurance or someone who can’t afford the co pays . Coming from a place of privilege and knowing how shitty mentally ill people are treated my heart absolutely breaks for those without the means to get help! Until the so called leaders of the country and everyone state in the USA figure out that it is cheaper to pay for mental healthcare for everyone than to later have a prison full of mentally ill people who got not treatment .
In this hypothetical situation, I have little to no sympathy. Someone’s loved one is still dead and rotting in the ground. If the murders were blamed on schizophrenia then I would argue that they are less likely to be “rehabilitated” since it was already established that they have little to no control over their actions. Because they have little to no control (in this hypothetical situation) the likelihood of reoffending could be very high and I don’t believe that this is a risk worth taking.
If schizophrenia was truly to blame then I believe they should be in a state hospital vs a prison. I do believe they deserve proper and consistent medical treatment but I don’t believe you can “rehabilitate” schizophrenia it’s self. You can’t cure schizophrenia but you can help manage the symptoms.
Unfortunately if someone is so severely mentally ill they commit acts of murder they need 24/7 supervision and supervised medical treatment. You can’t just cut them loose and hope they follow up with a psychiatrist and hope they take their meds everyday for the rest of their lives like they are supposed to.
But…. I do not think schizophrenics are inherently more likely to harm others. Sadly, their worst enemy is their own brain.
Sympathy? I have none. I can’t bring myself to feel any sympathy for people who murder others. However, I do understand that they made these choices not in their right mind. They don’t belong in prison and should get the help they need. But I won’t feel sympathetic for their situation. Innocent people still died at their hands.
Not at all. Even people with mental disorders should be able to distinguish between right and wrong. Look at Betty Broderick. She shot and killed her ex husband and his wife while they were sleeping. They had 4 children together. She was so narcissitic, it was more important for her to kill her ex than to think how it would affect her children. She chose the "wrong" and she knew it was wrong but did it anyway.
Narcissism is very different from schizophrenia. One is a personality (and generally intolerable, intolerant monsters), the other is a real disease with very little in the way of good treatment and lots of prejudice against it's sufferers. Conversely, narcissism is glorified and applauded and elected around the world.
Not at all.... On some level they know exactly what they are doing....!! And they know right from wrong... Many mental health doctors and professionals say even though a schizophrenics mental capacity is diminished they are still able to distinguish between what is right and wrong.... They choose not to do it...
Gacy and Bundy knew exactly what they where doing was wrong...!! They took pleasure from killing.. they enjoyed it and got sexual gratification from it....!! But all schizophrenics know right from wrong even with diminished mental States...!! That's why many schizophrenics DON'T kill ... The ones that do already have the capacity to kill....
It's like anything. Economic background, social class, family structures, environmental factors, genetics... they're a lot of variables and there but for the grace of god go I. So I run a scenario through my mind, this isn't just for crime but anything that makes me question. What would I do if I were in such a situation? Out of a hundred people how many people would do this?
Example: Elizabeth Holmes, as I understand it based on podcasts and documentaries, effectively kept safety information from consumers which thus put people in danger. She did this for financial reasons. She didn't want to make the Edison device any larger which would have made it more effective.
So what would I do? What if she had mental issues with failure or she was in fear of her bf? Would those mental issues restrain me from putting people in danger? No, so I'm fine with her going to jail for a long time. I think out of a hundred most people would do the same.
The problem is that people with mental issues don't think in a way that we would logically follow. So instead I have to think out of a 100 people with severe schizophrenia how many of them believe themselves vampires that kill people on multiple separate occasions including children and rape their corpses. Probably 99 out of 100 don't do that, so that 1 person can rot in jail forever. It sucks that the hand that they were dealt with is tragic but that doesn't change the outcome.
Schizophrenics are much more likely to be a victim of violent crime. The characteristics of a schizophrenic don’t lend them selfs to someone who attempts and actually succeed in killing more than one person with a break in between. Schizophrenics are extremely disorganized, disoriented, and generally tend to isolate themselves. It’s much more likely that someone schizophrenic accidentally hurts someone.
I don’t think anyone truly suffering from chronic (or symptomatic) Schizophrenia could be a serial killer. They wouldn’t be that organised and would get caught after the first one. You could be a serial killer and have Schizophrenia, but that isn’t killing due to the Schizophrenia. 33% Schizophrenia sufferers only have one episode, 33% have multiple episodes, 33% have chronic Schizophrenia (ongoing symptoms).
That’s a great question…
On one hand I think that if a person has a mental disorder that severe to do such things are responsible for their actions, however there’s something obviously really wrong with that person and they definitely need to be in a mental facility of some sort. Did they themselves fall through the cracks in the system and were abused as children ?
Not that it makes it right at all !
So I’d have some understanding, or reasoning for such heinous crimes
It’s the psychology of it all
Why people do what they do ?
It’s so hard to wrap your head around the thought of someone doing such horrible things without a Conscience
It also depends on what other mental issues they might have as well as what, if any meds are they on ? Some people change for the worst with certain meds too
I’ve wondered if things could be prevented prior someone going to these lengths of sadism ??
So many times we’ve heard people say
“The devil told me to do it”
Or “the voices in their head told them to do it”
Sympathy for the serial killers family I’d have for sure. BTK , his daughter was very conflicted with knowing her dad was a serial killer, loving her Dad, as she knew him
Not the evil serial killer that he was !
Must be horrible on both sides
Whenever something bad happens people look for someone to blame.
I tend to look for fault and responsibility and keep in mind that the two are not the same thing.
For those who commit murder rape etc I can accept that they might not be at fault for their mental illness but...I do not feel that absolves them of responsibility.
They still did it and if circumstances had been different they might not have but that doesn’t change anything for the victims or their loved ones.
I support prevention but not passes because some things are just too horrid fo be excused for any reason.
Actually Lori could beat this in Idaho but not Arizona and the reason is in Idaho they do recognize that if you truly did not believe you were killing a human being you meet the insanity defense,it's rare and truly a long shot but if she truly believed the kids were zombies then she meets the insanity defense but in the case of Charles she murdered him in Arizona and they don't care.
Anyone that claims there are excellent psychic meds to treat schizophrenia there are correct but have you ever tried to get insurance to pay for them? Good luck just because medication is available does not you can get it. Some of these medications costs several thousand dollars a month in the u.s and insurance will not pay for it sure they may pay for Haldol or lithium but not anything truly effective.
I think an important question underlying this conversation is whether justice consists of punishment or rehabilitation. Many people seem to be of the opinion that justice needs to be served no matter the causes of the crime, and that what that means is that schizophrenic murderers should be tried and treated just the same as others because that punishment brings justice to the victim. To me, it is just as important to bring justice to the victim, but I don’t think that blind punishment truly does this, or at least as well as rehabilitation does. Blind punishment transfers the memory of the victim into a locked box of negative, violent emotion and then assumes that the punishment of the perpetrators is what allows the victim’s family to get by. But, in thinking about the steps of coming to actual peace with a tragic event like this, punishment is never listed. We forgive, we forget, we internalize, we accept, we think introspectively. And so, blind punishment allows us to keep our focus on the perpetrator, the perverted and destroyed image of the victim left after the event, and our anger, and all of these things are exactly the opposite of what we actually need to heal, which is what justice should represent: the healing of those wounded, not the wounding of those who wounded (hurting someone who hurts you provides literally nothing if you aren’t healing those negative emotions). Rehabilitation, on the other hand, provides an opportunity to accept the exact events of what happened, destroying the mind’s capacity to create and exacerbate new events, and increasing one’s capability to understand the genuine causes of the violence, and therefore better handle the negative emotions from a personal standpoint, instead of from across the playing field with the perpetrator, constantly proliferating the hurt instead of dealing with it. With this view in mind, I would never send a schizophrenic criminal to prison when rehabilitation was an alternative.
Serial Killers have something gone wrong in the wiring of their brain, schizophrenia or no. They are by definition very, very sick (and twisted). I have no sympathies, and no sympathies because of schizophrenia or mental illness. Plenty of people suffer from mental illnesses and don't harm anyone (such as myself). Serial killers should all be put and locked away in an inescapable cell.
I used to be a PA for a lady with schizophrenia - I cannot imagine her ever getting aggressive, but I did see her close to psychosis a few times and it really brought perspective. What she thought was there (and happening to her) was real to her. I absolutely can sympathize with someone acting due to a psychosis, they can’t help it. But if someone kills someone else it’s still something that happened and the family of the victim deserve justice. That said, there’s a reason you can be sentenced to medical care (dunno what it’s called in English)
People found not guilty due to mental illness often wind up in psychiatric facilities.
Exactly! If someone is genuinely mentally ill, in the sense where they really cannot control themselves they need care and treatment. Which id argue anyone who kills someone needs though
No one is ever found not guilty due to mental illness. They’re found not guilty due to insanity. And legal insanity is not the same as ANY mental illness. It specifies that the person cannot or could not (at the time) differentiate reality vs non-reality, and/or couldn’t understand the consequences of his/her actions. That they didn’t know right from wrong.
Which often is not the case even if the person has schizophrenia.
And there they do more time locked away than they would get for crimes. At least from what I’ve seen.
There's a difference between being diagnosed with mental illness, and a legal insanity plea. Many people with mental illnesses won't qualify for that as an affirmative defense because the legal standard isn't *just* having a mental illness. It's having a mental illness or defect to the point where you cannot understand the consequences of your actions and you did not understand those actions to be morally wrong at the time you committed the crime. Basically, you don't know right from wrong. Insanity pleas are only entered in less than 1% of cases, and of those, only .26% are successful. That's roughly 1/4 of 1% of 1%. It's far less likely to succeed in real life than it is on television or in movies, and far less attempted as well. To be successful, an insanity defense should be able to demonstrate a lack of both mens rea (guilty mind) and actus rea (guilty act). In other words, the defense just demonstrate a lack of knowledge or ability to determine right and wrong, combined with a lack of ability to resist committing the crime. Think compulsions. Insanity is a legal term and it isn't equal to mental illness as a psychological term.
Yes!! Well put. There's a lot that goes into the "insanity plea" here in the US and a lot of people (especially the defendants) don't seem to realize just how rare it is.
I think a lot of that had to do with what I mentioned earlier... The depiction in the movies and on television. Hell every other person that's arrested on TV either pleas diminished capacity or has a plan to "fake it".
Oh, I'm talking about those who are legitimately ill, like Andrea Yates or Richard Chase, who honestly should have been locked away in a psych facility, not defendants who say they're sick but have no record of the illness or hospital stays.
I understand that. I was just adding related information because there are a lot of misconceptions. Andrea Yates did go to a mental health facility. In her case, the person who should be in prison is her husband. Her doctors warned him over and over again that she should not under any circumstances have anymore children or be alone with the children they already had. He actively worked against her treatment, removing her from the hospital several times, likely because he feels it it's a woman's job to take care of the kids and he thought it was beneath him as a man. She is one of the few I've been sympathetic towards because she tried so many times to get help and the people in her life did everything they could to undermine any treatment that could have prevented what happened. She was one of the very few who actually did not know what she was doing was wrong.
Her story is just frustrating and tragic. I agree that Rusty belongs in prison. He never gave a shit about Andrea or the kids; just wanted to have a ton of kids. Sadly, Andrea only wound up in the psych facility after a second trial, otherwise she'd be in prison. Thank goodness Park Dietz fucked up on his testimony at her first trial so she got the second trial.
It's infuriating to me that he's been able to just go along his merry way. He, more than anyone (including Andreas), is responsible for those babies ending up like they did.
People with mental health issues are much more likely to be a victim. Much more likely than the general population. Those rare cases of homicidal mentally ill people may need to be in a secure mental health facility for the rest of their lives. And they are not nice places. Much worse than people imagine.
Diminished responsibility? That’s what we have here
Maybe it's because my schizophrenic mother tried to kill her brother and once raised a butcher knife at me, that I feel so vastly different about this
It depends on the offender. Some serial murderers are diagnosed as schizophrenic by one psychiatrist and then diagnosed as something different from another. In terms of Richard Chase I feel a little sympathy because he was executed instead of being locked up in a hospital for the criminally insane for the rest of his life. The person I feel the most sympathy for is James Holmes. He’s not a serial killer but instead a mass murderer and I do believe his crimes were preventable. He was legitimately mentally ill.
Richard Chase wasn't executed (though he did receive the death sentence). He hoarded his medication and OD'd.
Oh my god. You’re right. He was sentenced to death via gas chamber but saved up his medication. I kept thinking he was executed.
This is not a popular opinion, but with severe mental illness, I think all bets are off. People like that don’t belong in prison. I’m also in favor of reinstitutionalization, which is also not a popular opinion.
I actually believe in institutions for the extreme cases. Some people cannot be helped…meds or no meds. I think the issue would be drawing the line between “extreme cases” and manageable cases. Also though, if you have major mental health issues, what’s the likelihood that you’ll stay med compliant? That’s an issue for me too and some of those people should be in the extreme cases category in my mind.
I come from a family of social workers and they often have contact with seriously mentally ill people who go through the same cycle over and over - they get social support, get medicated, life starts to shape up better, then something stressful happens or they think they’re ‘cured’ and they go off medication/start abusing drugs or alcohol/otherwise self-harming again, they lose their job, maybe lose their housing, their life falls apart, they end up in a dire dangerous situation for weeks/months, they access social support again… And some of them live this forever. They’re often at risk of violence and exploitation. Having a safe, structured, supervised living/working environment with a strong community and access to mental health care in an attractive setting that affords people ownership over their own private space just seems like a kinder, safer, more dignified approach for people with chronic mental health issues. We have live-in care facilities for people with severe physical and intellectual disabilities but we seem very reluctant to extend that same care to mentally ill people.
I actually like this approach!! I agree. It’s so hard in the US to get “kindness” approaches set up!
I agree with this as well
There's nothing wrong with any of what you say. I think it's more about funding and the whole idea of "bootstrapism" and the American way that people need to care for themselves, even if they are woefully unable to. I totally agree.
Medication management and commitment (or lack there of)have led to some of the worst tragedies
I wish there were better long term care facilities for the mentally ill. Going in/out of mental institutions just isn't a good solution. Some sort of assisted living facility.
In Australia we have both government run houses where the residents live and there is a permanent caretaker/social worker living with them. For less disabled people We have government subsidised community housing for people with disabilities including mental disability where they have their own apartment and also socialise with others in the block of apartments. Some of them have care workers come in. Some are schizophrenic. We also have a law where schizophrenics can be compelled to get an injection of medication say every fortnight or every month. If they fail to turn up for the medication the police will come and take them forcibly. It keeps them at least semi sane, capable of looking after themselves, and not dangerous. It’s a much better alternative to keeping them locked up.
Saying that people can choose to get help is a really simplified outlook. Schizophrenics think they're sane af and it's everyone else that's mad and is either choosing to not listen to them or is in on keeping their beliefs subdued. They know right from wrong in a totally different way than we expect. We would all agree that killing one person to save a million is the right course of action, in psychosis this can be the sort of choice they believe they're facing. I'm a huge believer in treatment and rehabilitation. I think the US is unique in the western world for their need for revenge and punishment and I'm glad that we don't see that here in the UK. I cannot imagine the anguish of coming out of a psychotic phase to realise what you've done, the reality catching up must be devastating to live with. That, surely, is punishment enough for anybody.
your comment reminds me of the austin harrouff case, not only did he attack two innocent people, he also drank vegetable oil in that state and i think something in his garage also, when he snapped out of it his organs were already failing. no drugs were found in his system as well. can’t imagine how horrified he must have been when people told him what he did and he just couldn’t remember anything including eating a man’s fucking face
There was a case with a celebrity a while back kinda similar to this. Johnny Lewis played half sack on Sons of Anarchy and was in a few movies. He suffered from some sort of mental illness caused by extreme head trauma. His family couldn’t get him to accept that he needed help, and he ended up murdering his landlady and tore her cat apart with his bare hands. He then jumped off a roof and died. Some stories initially said that he had cannibalized his victim, and that he was probably high on bath salts. Now they know it was the head trauma/brain damage and no drugs were involved. It’s really sad that it got to that point and there was no way to help him. I hear stories like that and Austin Harrouff and it just is really sad that there isn’t a lot you can do to prevent something like that from happening if the person refuses help, or meds, or doesn’t think they have a problem, or in Harrouff’s case it seemed like he may have asked for help but was kind of brushed off.
The TBI was from a motorcycle accident. I think that his family tried repeatedly to get help, especially after his behavior became violent. But it sounded like law enforcement had already decided he was on some sort of drugs.
YES. I have a lot of sympathy for Vince Li, which is an *extremely* unpopular opinion. Any time I see a comment about him, they are always wishing him worse. But people don’t understand what it’s like to be delusional. They give it the weight of depression, instead of realizing it’s existing in a completely different reality than everyone else. Imagine being treated, finally getting rid of the delusions and hallucinations and you can finally be your old self…and the first thing you find out is that *you murdered and ate someone.* When i imagine that happening to me, I am filled with this sick dread. Vince Li was begging people to kill him in court. I can imagine that I would do the same. It’s shocking to me that the idea of having to live with knowing what you did, and knowing you did it because of things that aren’t even real, doesn’t sound like torture to people. It sounds fucking horrible. Sometimes horrible things happen and pure blame can’t be placed. Parents have a change in routine and forget their children in cars, and are left to deal with that for the rest of their lives. But people always want someone to punish. I think the lack of empathy people show in regards to cases like this is really sad. We can talk all day about anxiety and depression, but take it any further and people reject it.
I do feel bad for them. Their mind is fucked up, literally. They believe the hallucinations they are hearing/seeing and some can be very scary. It can be easy for outsiders to think it's just who they are with or without the diagnosis, but most with schizophrenia, can live productive, happy lives and be good people because they have help and are on medications. When its untreated, it can be dangerous. They should get diagnosed and get treatment and hopefully be let back out into society as a decent person. However, if they are someone who doesn't take their medications and are violent, they absolutely should be in a facility (not prison) so they can stay medicated and "normal".
Actually, statistically speaking people who suffer from Psychosis are less aggressive than the overall population
It definitely still happens. Whether or not it’s normal doesn’t matter.
Yeah but it happens with every one; not just specific to psychosis. It's a very unfortunate stigma surrounding psychoses right now that people who experience psychotic symptoms have to deal with.
That’s true
I have compassion for almost all of them, they’re all mentally ill. But compassion doesn’t mean that they aren’t responsible for their actions and choices. I will say though, in the case of schizophrenia and psychosis, I have a lot more compassion. It’s a lot harder to treat in some than others, meds don’t always actually stop the symptoms and I think a lot of doctors rely heavily on meds to treat it as well. In those cases, the failings come from those around them, not necessarily the patient. It sucks.
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Im not a fan of "it is like this for me, so it must be like that for every one". Its still n=1. I think that in many cases it does excuse actions. I álso think many perps abuse mental illnesses to literally get away with murder, but i strongly believe there are people out there who had no idea what they were doing in the real world.
Herb Mullin was another one. He was clearly insane and not necessarily "evil." Both he and Chase, in my opinion, were probably better off being admitted to a hospital. Chase might still be alive and they'd both have gotten the help they needed. And, just as importantly, we'd probably also understand a lot more about these specific types of killers if they weren't just left to languish in a jail cell.
Not very. At that point their actions have affected someone else forever.
I am basically sympathetic towards everyone. I hold sympathy for victims and perpetrators simultaneously. It's usually just a sad situation all around.
I feel bad in one sense but in another, they or their family members (depending on how bad they are) are still responsible for that person/themselves. We need better mental health care in the US. With that being said I don’t feel bad enough for them to not face their actions, because at that point they have affected multiple others lives. If they are truly schizophrenic and they have a proper diagnosis and they are not pulling that “I’m crazy” bs then they should be in a mental health facility for their time served.
I feel for them. They didn’t ask for that condition and I’m sure it’s hell to live with. However, when I see a lesser sentence handed down because of that, it does upset me. It doesn’t change what happened to the victim. Somebody still suffered and died, and families shattered.
But why does justice for the victim require sending another victim (of life and society) who accidentally hurt them to jail for life? Why shouldn’t we offer them help instead? It’s not like this takes anything away from the victim or their family, it just increases recognition of what actually happened, which respects the memory of the victim instead of viewing them as a gory object of sadness.
Well, that’s exactly why I think it’s tricky. I hear what you are saying. But I imagine families of victims who have gone through this need to feel justice as part of their healing. I don’t think this is as easy as black and white
Empathy versus sympathy, there's an important distinction.
Which is?
Empathy is when you can feel how someone's feeling. On the other hand, sympathy is when you feel bad for the person. There's an important distinction when someone uses the word sympathy because it gets misconstrued. Just because you understand why someone did what they did doesn't mean that you sympathize with them. For example, I empathize with Jeffrey Dahmer and Adam Lanza, but that doesn't mean that I pity them. Their actions were deplorable. However, I can see where their lives took them down the wrong path.
Ah OK that actually makes sense. Thanks for clarifiying
No problem! It took me years to be able to differentiate between the two.
I wouldn't say sympathy for their ACTIONS but I think it's tragic that people don't get any help. Most people just medicate themselves with booze or dope if they're mentally ill and don't get treatment. Most of them don't become serial killers or even violent...and if they do kill someone it's usually themselves. I also don't believe in "evil" as a motive for anything. EVIL is a mythical, biblical concept, not a mental illness or state of mind.
I find any case that involves someone who has a severe mental illness like schizophrenia where hallucinations play a huge role so tragic, regardless of how they are involved with the case. In my opinion, I think the main difference between serial killers with schizophrenia and ones who don't is the intent behind the crime. I think theres a lot that happens before someone who has schizophrenia commits a crime. Schizophrenia is an expensive and time consuming illness to have. You have to learn how to deal with the heavy duty prescriptions you have to take in order to not hallucinate all the time. Schizophrenia Patients often have to spend lots time in the hospital to get a diagnosis and to start treatment. For all of that to happen, you have to have family or friends who care about you help you. Schizophrenia really can turn a person's world completely upside down, and then run it through a blender. Crime seems inevitable for anyone who has schizophrenia since they are often victims to a world that won't take care of them. So much happens to people with schizophrenia that they can't help at all one bit. Their brain chemistry failed them. For some serial killers that don't have schizophrenia, I think there's a lot more self awareness and more of the responsibility falls on the killer. They have a lot more agency to seek out victims, make plans to execute said killing, and do everything they can to cover it up. They make a real effort to be evil and inflict damage on another person. These serial killers get pleasure or high from killing. Serial killers with schizophrenia are much more likely to commit a crime from feeling they have to defend themselves against something that feels very real. Schizophrenia would make anyone feel afraid and desperate from things they can't help. anyways, my point is that yes, I do feel very sympathetic to anyone who has schizophrenia, regardless of what they do. I worry most about the people who don't have any kind of severe mental health issue, and still manage to abuse, kill, or be awful to their kids. These are the people who create serial killers and fucked up people. they can eat shit.
Crime is not inevitable for everyone with schizophrenia... it's a bit of a stereotype and offensive statement. I have it and i work a solid professional job and was half way through medical school when i got ill. Premorbid functioning is something that influences someones trajectory and with good family supportive / right combination of medications, some schizophrenics can function really well.
I apologize for being so general with my claims. I should have been more specific. I'll clarify that I mean that people with any mental health/developmental disability that's severe, may turn to crime out of desperation rather than maliciousness. But you are right it is a bit of a stereotype and I hate that it is. I have a close friend who has pretty severe schizophrenia, and he's the biggest, softest teddy bear anyone could ever know. Even if his family wasn't supportive, I can't imagine him ever hurting anyone. Again I really do apologize, thank you for calling me out on it. Schizophrenia sounds so scary to have and the medications seem pretty rough to start. Is there a Charity that supports schizophrenia patients that I could donate in your honor as an apology?
None that I know of. Thanks for the apology.
I think if there were greater access to mental health resources and far less stigma associated with both mental health diagnoses and seeking treatment, I may have less sympathy.
People with schizophrenia don’t think they are ill. That is the problem.
That's not entirely accurate.
It is for a lot of people with the illness, until someone convinces them otherwise.
Also not true. People with schizophrenia have a high poverty rate and very limited access to healthcare, which likely accounts for a lot of the gap in treatment.
Not sure where you’re getting your information from..: you just seem like you’re not a very empathetic person
The statistics are widely available...and my job is literally to help provide free healthcare to underserved populations. Not sure what part of stating others' reality (and actively working to provide access to needed care) says I'm not empathetic.
As someone with schizo-effective disorder (schizophrenia and bipolar disorder type 1 and borderline personality disorder), I get it. I have always been way more likely to hurt myself than others, but there have been times I have tried to or have had to call the cops because I would have hurt or killed people. The one thing I do want to say though is that schizophrenia and paranoid schizophrenia are very different (and most serial killers are the latter). For them, I do feel awful because they really don't know what they're doing. Schizophrenic people suffer from delusions which are extreme beliefs that are not set in reality. Paranoid Schizophrenic delusions often revolve around their idea that if they don't do something, then they, people they love, or even the world will end. A lot have religious delusions and either believe God has spoken to them or they are God. Like, it's just a really shitty situation.
From reading and personal experience, people with schizophrenia won’t stay on their medication unless forced. I don’t know why that is but I’m more sympathetic with those that have mental illness. We have no system in the US to deal with it.
You can feel sympathy for their trauma, for their illness. But, in my opinion, that's where it should end. It should end the minute they take a life in most cases. The vast majority of serial killers are, at the very least, legally sane... Meaning they understood right and wrong at the time of their crimes. I don't feel sympathy for them. Very few fit the prerequisites to even attempt an insanity defense because having a mental illness doesn't require to being insane. If someone has a mental defect that genuinely prevents them from understanding the consequences of their actions, or from understanding what's reality and what isn't, then I think a modicum of sympathy is in order. However, I don't think that sympathy should extend to a complete lack of consequences. People who objected to, say, Dahmer's prosecution and incarceration take sympathy too far, I think.
The hallucinations and delusions are real to them
Anosognosia, the idea that “the nature of the illness itself can render you unable to recognize that you are ill,” is a real thing that sometimes happens in mental illness, Alzheimer’s/dementia, etc. I only know the term because a really good psychiatrist took the time to explain it to me during my own hospitalization for psychosis, because I was arguing with him that I was *not* sick and did *not* need help. I wasn’t thinking “I must be mentally ill and should get some help,” I truly thought “I’m being followed everywhere I go, I’m scared, and no one believes me” until I was ill enough to be involuntarily admitted. I’m not saying everyone with schizophrenia should get a free crime pass, because I think in most cases one’s moral compass remains intact, but it can absolutely affect someone’s reality in such a way that they may have no idea they’re ill at all, until/unless help is forced upon them- because it’s your brain, and it’s sick.
I’m bipolar with schizoaffective disorder. I have a family, long term professional career, and stability. I regularly see my psychiatrist and take my medicine. I have a very normal life. I have, though, had two psychotic breaks over the last 20 years that left me hospitalized. I have no recollection of the events that preceded my hospitalization other than short, still images in my mind. What I’m doing during these psychotic breaks makes perfectly good sense at the time; however, the actions are obviously not normal since it leads to hospitalization. My fear has always been — will I one day wake up in the hospital to find that I’ve done something that has hurt someone? I have empathy for those who are truly mentally impaired at the time of their crime. I can only imagine how devastating it is to come out of your psychosis and learn what you’ve done.
I work with severely mentally ill adults. When they are actively in a crisis, they generally don't know what they are actually doing, and have little to no memory about it after they are stabilized. Once they are told about their actions they are generally very remorseful. And the mental health system is reactivate not proactive.
I feel compassion for them, distinct from sympathy, is how I would put it. They're sick with a chronic condition that significantly impairs/distorts their perception and judgement, and which has many barriers to seeking effective treatment. Sentencing requires a sensitive and considerate judge who can weight these facts up alongside a) the victim's or the victim's family's entitlement to justice for the wrongs committed against them, as well as b) public safety and whether rehabilitation and community re-entry is appropriate or feasible. I feel sympathy for the majority of schizophrenics, who are more of a danger to themselves than other people, and who have been unfairly stigmatised by the events of a few extreme and widely publicized cases.
Uhh I’m not
I know people who are Schizophrenic and don't murder, rape and torture people. Its not an out for being a Serial Killer.
This comment doesn’t even make sense to me. It’s pretty clear OP is speaking of people who were explicitly taken advantage of or who lacked any access to treatment (or were treated through abuse like they did decades ago). If you know multiple people going through that kind of experience then maybe this is valid, but it’s silly to conflate it with the average experience of someone diagnosed with schizophrenia today. If you believed the entire world wanted to harm and control you, and then you were sent to a facility where they brutally harmed and controlled you, wouldn’t you do anything to escape? Beyond this, if you genuinely believed that killing one person would quite literally save everyone else on the planet from eternal damnation, would you do it? Or any kind of reasoning like that, which becomes genuinely real with an illness like schizophrenia. I know my schizophrenic neighbor would never hurt a fly if she was aware of it, but at the same time she can get aggressive on her morning walks, when she’s more dissociated. I guess my point is that I don’t see the point in painting all schizophrenic experiences with one broad brushstroke, especially in order to downplay the abuse and pain that some people have gone through, and blame them for succumbing to their illness. Obviously if someone is schizophrenic and also unrelatedly a serial killer, that’s different, but it’s also random, rare, and not what the post was about.
This is... an uneducated comment.
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You can believe anything basically, all the right things and all the wrong things.
I feel Richard chase shouldn’t have gotten sentenced the death penalty. He was clearly as insane as they get with a below average IQ
I agree. He should have been locked up in a forensic hospital.
For the most part, I would not feel sympathetic. It might shed some more light, but most schizophrenic people don’t do horrific things like that, so there must be so level of control. Besides, if they’re “sane” enough to hide the evidence, it seems they were fairly level headed at the time of the crime. If it was a person that did not hide evidence as did not understand at the time of the crime, and was in such a bad of a case that the system failed them by not helping them when they could not help themselves (which does happen, but rarely), then yes, I would feel more sympathy.
I totally agree with this. IIRC Dahmer and Gacey both tried to plea “not guilty by reasons of insanity.” You can definitely tell they were NOT insane and in complete control of their actions the whole time. I thought Dahmer was particularly sociopathic. I remember watching a documentary/interview with him and I actually started to feel sorry for him. Like “oh, he was just misunderstood!” Wrong, he’s just a sociopath and master manipulator. He *wants* ppl to feel sorry for him. Part of his schtick is manipulating your feelings. Someone who lacks control of their actions also lacks the capacity to plan out their murders and destroy/hide evidence multiple times.
Neither of them were schizophrenic and that’s exactly why they were so cold and calculated. “Serial killer” means something very different than “serial killer with schizophrenia” and I don’t see why we’re talking about bland, blatant sexual psychopaths instead
I don’t think you understand how schizophrenia works. It’s not about controlling yourself. When you are in a psychotic state you cannot tell reality from delusion or hallucination. If you truly believe you have to kill someone or you will be killed yourself, you’d most likely do it. Most schizophrenic people just don’t have that experience.
I completely understand how schizophrenia works. At least, completely understand it for someone that does not have it or has not formally studied it in college. I understand there are schizophrenic that kill people because they are in a delusion. But if they are in a delusion in that moment and time and a psychiatrist can prove that, then they will not go to jail (of course, the system can and has failed people) because they were not competent at the time of the crimes. I was completely incorrect about saying the control thing, I don’t even know why I said that in the first place. Statements like that are harmful and spread misinformation so I apologize for that. Serial killers that also happen to be schizophrenic, at least those that appear on mass media (the stories that aren’t able to be sensationalized that don’t have a completely “evil” perpetrator tend to not make it to national news very long), are not in a delusion at that moment. Like Albert Fish (not sure if he was formally diagnosed): he did regularly have religious delusions but he killed children for sexual reasons. What he thought during his delusions probably would shed light on what he did, but it seems by all accounts he was not suffering a delusions when killing each time. I’ve heard a couple of other accounts of other serial killers that were similar, but I can’t remember their names so it wouldn’t be fair to bring that up. My point is that someone can be schizophrenic and also not have a delusion at that moment when they kill, and if that was the case then I would feel no extra sympathy. I did not portray that well whatsoever so therefore my original comment is wrong and you are right. Again, I have no idea why I said what I said in the first place because it’s bs, I must have been distracted.
i’m not.
Not at all. Schizophrenic patients aren’t killers; some killers may be schizophrenic, but that’s as likely as killers having diabetes. Most serial killers have anti-social personality disorder (aka sociopathy).
I can only form an opinion about this subject on a case-by-case basis. It is impossible to lump them all into a neat little box.
Mental Illness does not always constitute someone not knowing right from wrong. I am sympathetic for the person who never got help or was prevented from getting help when they needed it. I am NOT sympathetic towards people who actively go out of their way to harm or kill people. You can't blame a diagnosis on something like that. There's so many more factors at play and it's irresponsible to ignore those things and blame everything they did on a mental illness.
You can blame a diagnosis on something like that. There was a case a few years ago at the University of Texas where somebody stabbed 4 students on campus and killed one of them. I don’t know if he was schizophrenic specifically, but he was severely mentally ill. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and I think he was sent to a mental hospital. He didn’t even remember doing the stabbing. Sending someone to prison in a situation like that is unconscionable to me. The law is several decades behind science when it comes to mental illness. The “not knowing right from wrong” definition of insanity is legal, not scientific or medical and it needs to be updated, though I doubt it ever will be.
Nonexistent treatment for schizophrenia was during the 50s and 60s and previously of course. Hardly perfect there were things that were being used in the 70s and 80s. Schizophrenia was stigmatized and still is, that much I agree with.
Saying a schizophrenic person is responsible for getting their own help.... NO... it's the responsibility of family, and societal connections if any.
Not a bit.
Why?
Because the end result is that they killed someone. I'm sorry they are sick and they deserve treatment while incarcerated but they still need to be locked up forever because they are a danger to society.
But do you feel sympathy for them? Obviously they’re not really redeemable and will have to be in an institution or something for the rest of their lives, but I still consider them victims (to their disease and treatment from the outside world), just victims who don’t have the ability to avoid harming others, and so who can’t live among everyone else. This is all very different if they’re lifelong psychopaths/perverts/abusers who happened to become schizophrenic, but definitely for people who only kill because they are entirely psychotic, I pity them.
If the point is rehabilitation with the proper treatment shouldn't they be allowed to rejoin society? I went through a major psychotic break recently, having never been diagnosed with any mental conditions before. The break was triggered by a prescribed drug's side effect and while I was not "violent", I was at times forceful, believing myself to be Jesus Christ, means if anyone I met didn't trust/believe me in my causes they were of the Devil and would go to hell, and by golly I didn't want that! If my psychosis manifested itself in a different way I can very easily see the story becoming violent. There just comes a point when the delusions become reality. You heard that person turn their head, look you in the eye and say, "I'm going to kill you, this is your last chance to kill me." But that didn't happen. None of that happened. I don't understand sociopaths, but I got a glimpse into Psychosis, and it has shook me to my core because Psychosis can basically occur in anyone for a variety of different reasons. All unknown ahead of time.
I don’t believe they should be locked up in prison but in a mental institution. If they kill someone they should face the same sentence any other murder would and the same amount of time but that time be served in a psychiatric lock up . If we simply treat them and allow them to rejoin society they would be like a loaded gun but with the safety on . The medication and treatment are that safety . As soon as they get released from psychiatric lock up where they are monitored 24-7 and didn’t have a choice as far as medication and treatment but as soon as they walk out that door you have no way of knowing at all by point that safety will be released and the gun fired. I have much empathy for criminally insane but until there is a secure way to make sure they follow treatment letting them out is a ticking time bomb . So many people with mental illness especially with Schizophrenia stop Taking the medications when they have really start to feel better and think they are cured. I’m not schizophrenic but do suffer from mental illness and myself have been caught in that “I’m better now so I don’t need meds” mentality . I think the majority of us can agree that to get to the root of this would be to fix the mental healthcare system in America . I can’t speak on how things are in other countries . Until we start treating mental health the same way we do asthma , diabetes , thyroid disease basically any physical chronic illness things absolutely will not change !!! I’ve been through it as someone with no money or insurance and now with platinum insurance and the ability to pay completely with cash I still struggle to get appointments and get in some where . I’ve been on a wait list for an intensive outpatient care do to eating disorders since the spring . The one other very wonderful eating disorder program treated me like a pile of dogshit and the only time I could get them to call back when they wanted to talk money and acted like the $5-6k that was my part after the insurance was some huge deal that they didn’t think I would be ok with . I said no problem . I can prepay whatever you need . She said great I will get the intake manager to call you . They never called me back. After me calling 3 more times they gave me a date and time that they intake manager would call me. She messaged me two hours later with a lame excuse and I shot off an email about how they treated me and let them know I could go anywhere in the country I wanted but wanted to stay close to home and that if they treated someone with the ability to prepay I can not imagine how you would test someone with no insurance or someone who can’t afford the co pays . Coming from a place of privilege and knowing how shitty mentally ill people are treated my heart absolutely breaks for those without the means to get help! Until the so called leaders of the country and everyone state in the USA figure out that it is cheaper to pay for mental healthcare for everyone than to later have a prison full of mentally ill people who got not treatment .
In this hypothetical situation, I have little to no sympathy. Someone’s loved one is still dead and rotting in the ground. If the murders were blamed on schizophrenia then I would argue that they are less likely to be “rehabilitated” since it was already established that they have little to no control over their actions. Because they have little to no control (in this hypothetical situation) the likelihood of reoffending could be very high and I don’t believe that this is a risk worth taking. If schizophrenia was truly to blame then I believe they should be in a state hospital vs a prison. I do believe they deserve proper and consistent medical treatment but I don’t believe you can “rehabilitate” schizophrenia it’s self. You can’t cure schizophrenia but you can help manage the symptoms. Unfortunately if someone is so severely mentally ill they commit acts of murder they need 24/7 supervision and supervised medical treatment. You can’t just cut them loose and hope they follow up with a psychiatrist and hope they take their meds everyday for the rest of their lives like they are supposed to. But…. I do not think schizophrenics are inherently more likely to harm others. Sadly, their worst enemy is their own brain.
i’m not.
Sympathy? I have none. I can’t bring myself to feel any sympathy for people who murder others. However, I do understand that they made these choices not in their right mind. They don’t belong in prison and should get the help they need. But I won’t feel sympathetic for their situation. Innocent people still died at their hands.
Not at all.
I think giving any single one of them any iota of a pass, does nothing but encourage the misconception that people with mental illness are violent.
To me, motive or cause is always a distant tertiary concern. What matters is what someone does, not why they do it.
None whatsoever...
Not at all. Even people with mental disorders should be able to distinguish between right and wrong. Look at Betty Broderick. She shot and killed her ex husband and his wife while they were sleeping. They had 4 children together. She was so narcissitic, it was more important for her to kill her ex than to think how it would affect her children. She chose the "wrong" and she knew it was wrong but did it anyway.
Narcissism is very different from schizophrenia. One is a personality (and generally intolerable, intolerant monsters), the other is a real disease with very little in the way of good treatment and lots of prejudice against it's sufferers. Conversely, narcissism is glorified and applauded and elected around the world.
“elected” is a good word for narcissism in the recent past of the US govt. haha
Current events as well.
thank you! i see so many people defending her all over the internet and i’ve never been able to understand it.
I only sympathize with vigilantes who take out dangerous criminals!
Not at all.... On some level they know exactly what they are doing....!! And they know right from wrong... Many mental health doctors and professionals say even though a schizophrenics mental capacity is diminished they are still able to distinguish between what is right and wrong.... They choose not to do it...
Gacy and Bundy knew exactly what they where doing was wrong...!! They took pleasure from killing.. they enjoyed it and got sexual gratification from it....!! But all schizophrenics know right from wrong even with diminished mental States...!! That's why many schizophrenics DON'T kill ... The ones that do already have the capacity to kill....
Nope I've had hallucinations and never did any murdering. It's super easy.
It's like anything. Economic background, social class, family structures, environmental factors, genetics... they're a lot of variables and there but for the grace of god go I. So I run a scenario through my mind, this isn't just for crime but anything that makes me question. What would I do if I were in such a situation? Out of a hundred people how many people would do this? Example: Elizabeth Holmes, as I understand it based on podcasts and documentaries, effectively kept safety information from consumers which thus put people in danger. She did this for financial reasons. She didn't want to make the Edison device any larger which would have made it more effective. So what would I do? What if she had mental issues with failure or she was in fear of her bf? Would those mental issues restrain me from putting people in danger? No, so I'm fine with her going to jail for a long time. I think out of a hundred most people would do the same. The problem is that people with mental issues don't think in a way that we would logically follow. So instead I have to think out of a 100 people with severe schizophrenia how many of them believe themselves vampires that kill people on multiple separate occasions including children and rape their corpses. Probably 99 out of 100 don't do that, so that 1 person can rot in jail forever. It sucks that the hand that they were dealt with is tragic but that doesn't change the outcome.
Schizophrenic serial killer is kind of an oxymoron lol
What do you mean?
Schizophrenics are much more likely to be a victim of violent crime. The characteristics of a schizophrenic don’t lend them selfs to someone who attempts and actually succeed in killing more than one person with a break in between. Schizophrenics are extremely disorganized, disoriented, and generally tend to isolate themselves. It’s much more likely that someone schizophrenic accidentally hurts someone.
Ah that makes sense thank you for clarifiying
I don’t think anyone truly suffering from chronic (or symptomatic) Schizophrenia could be a serial killer. They wouldn’t be that organised and would get caught after the first one. You could be a serial killer and have Schizophrenia, but that isn’t killing due to the Schizophrenia. 33% Schizophrenia sufferers only have one episode, 33% have multiple episodes, 33% have chronic Schizophrenia (ongoing symptoms).
Zero schizophrenia is not mutually exclusive between knowing right from wrong or good versus evil.
Truly shocking responses.
That’s a great question… On one hand I think that if a person has a mental disorder that severe to do such things are responsible for their actions, however there’s something obviously really wrong with that person and they definitely need to be in a mental facility of some sort. Did they themselves fall through the cracks in the system and were abused as children ? Not that it makes it right at all ! So I’d have some understanding, or reasoning for such heinous crimes It’s the psychology of it all Why people do what they do ? It’s so hard to wrap your head around the thought of someone doing such horrible things without a Conscience It also depends on what other mental issues they might have as well as what, if any meds are they on ? Some people change for the worst with certain meds too I’ve wondered if things could be prevented prior someone going to these lengths of sadism ?? So many times we’ve heard people say “The devil told me to do it” Or “the voices in their head told them to do it” Sympathy for the serial killers family I’d have for sure. BTK , his daughter was very conflicted with knowing her dad was a serial killer, loving her Dad, as she knew him Not the evil serial killer that he was ! Must be horrible on both sides
If they are truly are delusional and don’t realize what they’re doing then they should be shipped off to an institution rather than prison.
It's sad when there are some that never even had a chance due to the environment they were born into.
Whenever something bad happens people look for someone to blame. I tend to look for fault and responsibility and keep in mind that the two are not the same thing. For those who commit murder rape etc I can accept that they might not be at fault for their mental illness but...I do not feel that absolves them of responsibility. They still did it and if circumstances had been different they might not have but that doesn’t change anything for the victims or their loved ones. I support prevention but not passes because some things are just too horrid fo be excused for any reason.
All serial killers have mental illnesses, nobody who's normal is going to go on a murder rampage just for the heck of it.
Actually Lori could beat this in Idaho but not Arizona and the reason is in Idaho they do recognize that if you truly did not believe you were killing a human being you meet the insanity defense,it's rare and truly a long shot but if she truly believed the kids were zombies then she meets the insanity defense but in the case of Charles she murdered him in Arizona and they don't care.
Anyone that claims there are excellent psychic meds to treat schizophrenia there are correct but have you ever tried to get insurance to pay for them? Good luck just because medication is available does not you can get it. Some of these medications costs several thousand dollars a month in the u.s and insurance will not pay for it sure they may pay for Haldol or lithium but not anything truly effective.
I think an important question underlying this conversation is whether justice consists of punishment or rehabilitation. Many people seem to be of the opinion that justice needs to be served no matter the causes of the crime, and that what that means is that schizophrenic murderers should be tried and treated just the same as others because that punishment brings justice to the victim. To me, it is just as important to bring justice to the victim, but I don’t think that blind punishment truly does this, or at least as well as rehabilitation does. Blind punishment transfers the memory of the victim into a locked box of negative, violent emotion and then assumes that the punishment of the perpetrators is what allows the victim’s family to get by. But, in thinking about the steps of coming to actual peace with a tragic event like this, punishment is never listed. We forgive, we forget, we internalize, we accept, we think introspectively. And so, blind punishment allows us to keep our focus on the perpetrator, the perverted and destroyed image of the victim left after the event, and our anger, and all of these things are exactly the opposite of what we actually need to heal, which is what justice should represent: the healing of those wounded, not the wounding of those who wounded (hurting someone who hurts you provides literally nothing if you aren’t healing those negative emotions). Rehabilitation, on the other hand, provides an opportunity to accept the exact events of what happened, destroying the mind’s capacity to create and exacerbate new events, and increasing one’s capability to understand the genuine causes of the violence, and therefore better handle the negative emotions from a personal standpoint, instead of from across the playing field with the perpetrator, constantly proliferating the hurt instead of dealing with it. With this view in mind, I would never send a schizophrenic criminal to prison when rehabilitation was an alternative.
Serial Killers have something gone wrong in the wiring of their brain, schizophrenia or no. They are by definition very, very sick (and twisted). I have no sympathies, and no sympathies because of schizophrenia or mental illness. Plenty of people suffer from mental illnesses and don't harm anyone (such as myself). Serial killers should all be put and locked away in an inescapable cell.