- Policing and the Mentally Ill: Victimisation and Offending in Severe Mental Illness

This chapter will review two important types of police interactions with the mentally ill: criminal offending and crime victimisation. For clarity, the chapter will focus on severe mental illness, rather than mental illness more broadly, which encompasses a much larger section of the population. Severe mental illnesses typically affect 1% to 2% of the population, and include diagnoses such as major psychotic and mood disorders.