According to a study carried out using Swedish registers including more than 7 million people, the mentally ill are much more often victims of homicides than the rest of the population.
Jérémie Labrousse, the young man of 22 years stabbed in the throat on Friday in Marseille, succumbed to his injuries, said Marseille deputy public prosecutor Jean-Jacques Fagni on Sunday (August 11th).
Following this tragic news item of rare violence that froze France, the Interior Ministry indicated that a suspect had been arrested on Saturday evening between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. “He is a well-known homeless man in the neighborhood. He was spotted thanks to the images of the CCTV cameras ».
According to the first elements of the investigation, this man in his forties has already been sentenced several times to small penalties for various small-scale crimes (theft, drugs, rebellion??). His last conviction was in 2003.
Suffering from mental disorders, he is currently undergoing psychiatric treatment without consent, his condition having been deemed incompatible with detention.
However, contrary to what certain media facts like this one might suggest, the mentally ill are the victims of homicide much more often than the rest of the general population.
Published in March in the British Medical Journal, a study conducted from Swedish registers including more than 7 million people revealed that the presence of a mental pathology is associated with an increased risk of death by homicide, a factor of 4.9.
In detail, although this risk is higher in people with drug addiction (about nine times higher), it is also increased in people with, personality disorders (3.2), depression (2.6), anxiety disorders (2.2), or schizophrenia (1.8).
Finally, according to a study conducted in Northern Europe and published in this same journal in January, the life expectancy of a schizophrenic or a bipolar person is reduced by 20 years, compared to the rest of the population.
The causes of this discrepancy are clearly identified. In order: suicide, accidents, largely linked to suicide attempts, cardiovascular disease and cancer. In other words, causes on which we should be able to act through prevention and screening. What the psychiatric care system is so far visibly incapable of doing …
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