Título del libro: Health Literacy: Developments, Issues And Outcomes
Título del capítulo: Illness recognition and aggression-dangerousness perception of schizophrenia: Impact on public's consideration of the insanity defense
ANA FRESAN ORELLANA;
Autores externos:
Idioma:
Inglés
Año de publicación:
2013
Palabras clave:
Aggression and dangerousness; Insanity defense; Not guilty by reason of insanity; Schizophrenia
Resumen:
Introduction: The capacity of a subject to understand the criminality of his/her acts and the subsequent direction of his/her behaviors are essential features of criminal responsibility. The insanity defense relies on the exclusion of culpability, but not the omission of the unlawfulness of the act. This defense derives from the idea that certain mental disorders such as schizophrenia interfere with a person's intention to commit an act with a desired consequence. Nevertheless, culpability is a matter determined by function and behavior rather than specific psychiatric diagnoses. Public perception of the not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) verdict is directly influenced by several myths such as the misconception that this defense is used only in trials involving a charge of murder. While some studies do not support this belief, schizophrenia is the diagnosis most often associated with violence, dangerousness and insanity. Today it is clear that the degree of dangerousness that public ascribes to people with schizophrenia is important as their attitudes toward the insanity defense may be linked to the recognition of the illness and its relationship to perceived aggression and dangerousness. There has been no study of whether public recognition of mental illness and perception of aggression and dangerousness is related to the consideration of the NGRI verdict in Mexico. We hypothesized that recognition of a mental illness will be associated to the consideration of the NGRI verdict while perception of aggression will be related to responsibility of the unlawful act. Method: A total of 2072 subjects from the general population of Mexico City were recruited by a convenience sampling approach. A case vignette describing a patient with paranoid schizophrenia was used to assess public's consideration of the not guilty by reason of insanity verdict, perception of aggressiveness and dangerousness (PAD) as well as perception of the subject having a mental illness and behaving unpredictable. Interviewers made a face-to-face approach to participants after the nature of the study was explained. Results: A total of 1208 (58.3%) respondents believed that the person described in the vignette will not be guilty by reason of insanity if committing a crime. Women were more prone than men to consider the
Entidades citadas de la UNAM:
ISBN:
9781628081688
Editorial:
Nova Science Publishers, Inc. Nombre de la publicación:
Illness recognition and aggression-dangerousness perception of schizophrenia: Impact on public's consideration of the insanity defense
Página inicial:
213
Página final:
223
Tipo de producto:
Capítulo de un Libro
