CASES OF CRIMES COMMITTED BY PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM SCHIZOPHRENIA AN ATTEMPT TO BRING THE PROBLEM CLOSER

Abstract

The article presents in detail the issue of punishable criminal acts in the course of severe, especially untreated schizophrenia. Psychiatric and legal awareness is high among experts, while stereotypes and myths that harm calm people with schizophrenia, who outnumber aggressive ones, still exist in wide circles of society. Just like among the healthy, i.e. mentally normalized, there are crimes, so also in the population of schizophrenics, who constitute only 1% of the population, there are statistically cases of aggression. Most often, patients commit prohibited acts after discontinuing pharmacological treatment, which, according to the unanimous opinion of psychiatrists, should be the basis of therapy for this disease. Also very often the families and friends of schizophrenic people deny the biological nature of schizophrenia and persuade them to discontinue or reduce the dose of medication, which in most cases ends in exacerbation or even full-blown relapse. A patient who, under the influence of the most frequently heard whispers and voices in the head (auditory hallucinations, the most common hallucination in schizophrenia), which tell him to kill himself and/or someone else, is often not sane at all, commanded by commanding voices and cannot go to prison where his mental state would deteriorate further. Compulsory treatment is the only way to protect the life and health of both the patient and people around them. The only way to prevent crimes in schizophrenia, especially the most serious ones (murder, rape, robbery), is psychoeducation of the society in the basic knowledge of psychopathology and the acquisition of a healthy habit of not being indifferent, but reacting to any disturbing signals.