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Not that I wish to defend the Murdoch press, but… “more likely to be a victim of crime;” also more likely to hang around with other people with mental illness, on wards, day centres, etc. so who are the perpetrators in these cases most likely to be? The article calls for more research, but if there is already research as to who these perpetrators are, perhaps another reader of HSJ would like to signpost it to the rest of us. My impression of tabloid reporting is that they equate violence with psychosis, not anxiety and depression, which as I’m sure we all know make up the majority of mental illness. According to the Mental Health Foundation, about 1% of the population experience schizophrenia, whilst according to Shift, about 5% of homicides are carried out by people with schizophrenia. The Shift statistic is meant to assuage public concerns, but most tabloid readers would probably be alarmed to make the connection that 1% of the population commit 5% of homicides.

http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/S/schizophrenia/

http://www.shift.org.uk/mediahandbook/whatsthestory/reporting/index.html

Of course, the vast majority of homicides are caused by one category of our society, men, and the tabloids aren’t clamouring for them to be locked up! But simply trotting out that tired old “mentally ill are most likely to be victims” phrase does less to de-stigmatise mental illness than more to undermine public confidence in statistics.

As Eysenck quoted Claude Bernard at the beginning of Smoking, Health and Personality, “I do not reject the use of statistics, but I condemn not trying to go beyond them.”