Emma E. “Beth” McGinty, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School departments of Health Policy and Management and Mental Health is the lead author of a new study on violence and mental illness. While she says that everyone can agree that anyone who kills people is not mentally healthy, it is not necessarily true that they have a “diagnosable illness.” Anger and emotional issues can occur as separate from a mental illness diagnosis.
The study determined that the media is painting a very misleading picture of mental illness and violence. Nearly 40 percent of news stories about a person with mental illness report that the person committed violence toward others. However, less than 5 percent of violent acts committed in the U.S. are directly related to mental illness.
Not much has changed over the last several decades, and the researchers say the heavy reporting of such a small actual number of mentally ill people is unfairly creating the perception that mentally ill people are more prone to violence. “In an ideal world, reporting would make clear the low percentage of people with mental illness who commit violence.”
About 20 percent of the U.S. population suffer from mental illness in any given year. Over a lifetime about half of those receive a diagnosis. McGinty said, “Despite all of the work that has been done to reduce stigma associated with mental health issues, this portrayal of mental illness as closely linked with violence exacerbates a false perception about people with these illnesses, many of whom live healthy, productive lives.”
The study used random samples of 400 news articles that have covered some aspect of mental illness during the 20-year period from 1994 to 2014. All of the articles appeared in 11 major media outlets in the U.S. The most frequently mentioned topic was violence, at 55 percent, with 38 percent covering violence against others. Although treatment was mentioned in 47 percent of the articles, only 14 percent described a successful recovery.
Reporting of mass shootings by individuals with mental illness increased during the period of time the study reviewed, rising from 9 percent of all news stories in the first 10 years to 22 percent in the second 10 years. In the first 10 years only 1 percent of the articles that linked mental illness with violence were on the front page, compared to 18 percent from 2005 to 2014.
Thirty-eight percent of the stories that reported on violence toward others mentioned that the risk of such violence can be increased by mental illness, but only 8 percent mentioned that most people who have a mental illness of rarely or never violent toward others.
Interestingly enough, the number of mass shootings remained steady during the 20 year period covered by the study, according to the FBI.
The report states, “In an ideal world, reporting would make clear the low percentage of people with mental illness who commit violence.” However, McGinty acknowledges that it may be difficult for news media not to connect mental illness with violence, because of the idea that anyone who commits a violent act, such as a mass shooting, must be mentally ill. She points out that violence may stem from many other factors, including drug or alcohol use, poverty or child abuse, elements that are rarely discussed. Coverage skews toward assuming first that mental illness is the culprit.