d history; Benjamin Franklin urged the founding of the first general hospital in the American colonies to include a ward for the mentally disordered, due to the violence they may commit (Monahan, 1992).
In 1857, an analysis of 49 cases of attempted or completed homicide, committed by patients who were treated for serious mental illness, was published. In 1919, it was observed that schizophrenics may in certain circumstances, commit impulsive actions that may become extraordinarily dangerous. Surveys in the 1980's demonstrated that individuals with schizophrenia, were believed to be aggressive, hostile, and violent (52 percent), and persons with mental illness were perceived as dangerous. Media has reflected this stereotype. Canadian newspapers between 1977 and 1984 attributed traits of dangerousness and unpredictability to individuals with serious mental illness. Another study found that 72 percent of mentally ill characters on TV dramas were portrayed as violent. Due to this stigmatization, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and the National Stigma Clearinghouse, have made efforts to question this negative connection. Studies of violent behavior include the study of: individuals who have been arrested, psychiatric inpatients and outpatients, families with a mentally ill member, and those with a serious mental illness (Torrey, 1994).
Studies from 1922 to 1945, of arrested individuals, demonstrated that mentally ill persons had a lower arrest rate than the general public; at this time however, the mentally ill were commonly confined to psychiatric hospitals, thus skewing study results. Studies since the advent of deinstitutionalization, in the 1960s, found that the arrest rate of the mentally ill was higher than that of the general population. A 1992 survey of 1,391 American jails found that 7.2 percent of the inmates had manifest symptoms of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Other studies reveal higher pe...