Evolving Public Views On The Likelihood Of Violence From People With Mental Illness: Stigma And Its Consequences

Highly publicized acts of violence routinely spark reactions that place blame on the perpetrator's presumed mental illness. Despite solid evidence that people with mental illness are unlikely to be dangerous, such prejudice can lead to support for inappropriately using legal means to force people into treatment. We examined trends in public perceptions of violence and support for coerced treatment across a twenty-two-year period using data from three National Stigma Studies. The studies gave respondents one of three vignettes describing people who met clinical criteria for mental disorders or one describing a person with nonclinical "daily troubles." Perceptions regarding potential violence and support for coercion generally rose over time-significantly so for schizophrenia. By 2018 over 60 percent of respondents saw people who met criteria for schizophrenia as dangerous to others, and 44-59 percent supported coercive treatment. Sixty-eight percent saw people with alcohol dependence as dangerous to others, and 26-38 percent supported coercion. Lower but substantial percentages were reported for people with depression and, remarkably, for those with nonclinical "daily troubles," who were viewed as dangerous. These findings reflect political discourse, not scientific data, and could lead to policies that would be ineffective and misdirect the search for the underlying roots of violence while unnecessarily increasing stigma toward people with mental illness.