Schizophrenia And Its Effects On The Way People Interpret...

Psychiatric disorders, such as Schizophrenia, when left undiagnosed and untreated, can lead to criminal behavior. Schizophrenia is a chronic condition that severely affects the way people interpret reality. The inability to distinguish between what is real and what is unreal, places schizophrenics at risk of committing crimes. To elaborate, schizophrenic patients often experience symptoms that include delusions and hallucinations; simply put, altered realities. These symptoms make it difficult for patients to function or perform daily routines normally. Patients with the disease may experience hallucinations; they may believe in things that aren t real, or become delusional; they may exhibit irrational or disordered thinking; and their†¦show more content†¦Patients who are undiagnosed are arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. Therefore, they are victims of their own mental illness, as well as a legal institution that fails to understand that criminals are victims of their mental condition. Paranoid Schizophrenia is the type of mental illness where the patient loses touch with reality. Patients experience delusions, or the belief in things that aren t real, or don t have any basis in reality. In other words, the patient often experiences illogical, unrealistic, and apparently meaningless thoughts and imaginings. Symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia greatly affect the patient s personality and cognition. These symptoms include: anger; the patient may become irrationally angry, yelling and cursing (Kinros, Reichenberg Frangou, 2010) for no apparent reason. Violence is another symptom, which may result from the patient s irrational anger. Paranoid Schizophrenics can become violent with anyone, family, friends, or stranger. When the patient experiences anger, he does not differentiate between who is a family, friend, or stranger; he is violent with whomever he is angry at. Another symptom is auditory hallucinations; this is where the patient hear s voices. These voices may tell the patient to do something that they otherwise might not normally do; or the patient could be having a complete conversation with the voices in his head. Researchers