RESEARCH ARTICLE
Criminality and Mental Illness--Social Deviance or Sick Role by Stephanie D. Mullings Is mental illness a disease or a social construct of society? Is there a real or spurious association between mental illness, deviance, and crime? Many states have used social control or biopower through imprisonment or medication to manage criminality and deviant behavior executed by the mentally ill. This article advances that many mental health individuals have been stereotyped as criminals because Delaware’s criminal justice system is limited in recognizing when someone needs treatment and not imprisonment. The National Alliance on Mental Illness advises that the police have arrested one in four people with a serious mental illness in Delaware at least once in their lifetime and that 47,000 Delawareans did not receive the needed mental health care. Additionally, over 85,000 people lived in communities with inadequate access to mental health professionals (NAMI, 2021). The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that persons with disabilities related to mental illness in Delaware County have been unlawfully imprisoned (Melamed, 2021). This supports the Department of Justice investigations which indicated that institutionalized individuals with mental illness were unnecessarily segregated. The health system of Delaware failed to provide services to individuals with mental illness, as mandated by Title II of the Americans with Disability Act 1990. Consequently, persons who could be served in the community are unnecessarily kept in institutions such as Delaware Psychiatric Centre, reducing their rehabilitation time (Perez, 2010).
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An accepted perspective is that social control and power on the human body have changed with the reclassification of the term “insane” through the medical gaze. This presents a disadvantage as the mentally ill become compliant and docile, through obligatory power and regulation over their bodies. Criminality is a social construct with macro-level consequences such as suicide and murder. It is influenced by societal exchanges of cultural values, language, gestures, and behaviors transferred through everyday interactions and within institutions where individual power over personal situations is reduced. This concept is considered a rational choice; however, it can be medicalized due to mental illness and deviant behavior. There is no consensus on the causes and consequences of mental illness, even with the various professionally written definitions. It is believed that this social phenomenon results in gross impairment of perception. This is distressing and burdensome for families, communities, and the government. The biomedical determination of mental illness may be a challenge in that physiological signs or symptoms are not always apparent. Hence, the notion of social determinants of mental illness which challenge the medical model is explained by genetic factors.
