Annotated Bibliography - Criminality and Mental Illness
3
that 64% and 56% of jail and state prison inmates, respectively, are affected by a history of
mental health problems. However, this journal did a wonderful job of presenting data to
represent the variety of factors that can influence crime incidence such as homelessness, drug
addiction, socioeconomic status, demographics, and more. An example of how Markowitz
achieves this is by presenting data such that confirms the relationships between the other factors
that impact crime rates and reoffending; the majority of homeless individuals are affected by
mental illness and/or substance abuse issues and are often located in less advantages
demographic locations that in turn add perceived pressure to commit crimes to survive. All facts
were well supported by other literature and well connected to explain what potential causes of
above-average crime rates or incidences may be.
"
Gender, mental illness, and crime
"
This article, "Gender, mental illness, and crime" (
Thompson, 2008
), was sponsored by the U.S.
Department of Justice and therefore must be evaluated as government approved information.
This is a report of studies done on factors that may have a relationship with crime incidence. The
key findings from stage one of the study at hand concluded that illegal drug use and depression is
associated with higher probability for people to commit a crime. Particularly, it was found that
women had higher probabilities of committing crimes under these conditions than men.
However, in stage two, findings concluded that [self] medicating women are less likely to
commit crimes than [self] medicating men. Ironically, it also identified that antidepressants tend
to lead to increase crime rates especially for the demographic of young women more so than
men. Older individuals have lower crime rates overall which have shown to be decreased by
antidepressants. The most heartbreaking information this report presents is from the third stage