Understanding Crime: The Role of Deficits, Disorders, and Impairments, Lecture notes of Administrative Law

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Why People Commit Crimes

Why Ask?

• (^) Understanding crime involves understanding, among other things, the variety of deficits, disorders, and impairments that play key roles.
• (^) These are not excuses, but often are reasons or facilitators of crime.

What Are The Key Considerations

• (^) Substance Use and Abuse
• (^) Mental Illness
• (^) Neurodevelopmental and Neurocognitive Impairments
• (^) Intellectual Deficits
• (^) Poverty/Disadvantage
• (^) Educational Deficits
• (^) Employment Problems
• (^) Housing and Homelessness

What Are The Key Considerations

• (^) The vast majority of criminal offenders have one and typically more of these impairments, deficits, disorders and circumstances.
• (^) When multiple conditions are present, we are faced with complex comorbidities that pose substantial challenges in addressing - (^) Hard enough in the free world with the best of care

Substance Use Disorders

• (^) 27 million Americans 12 years of age and older are current users of illicit drugs. This is nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population. - (^) Not all are substance abusers
• (^) One-half of Americans are current alcohol drinkers. Of those, 60 million are binge drinkers and 17 million are heavy drinkers.

Substance Use Disorders

• (^) The vast majority (80%) of criminal offenders in the justice system abuse drugs and/or alcohol, which is six to eight times the prevalence in the general population

Substance Use Disorders

• (^) The basis for the disease model of substance abuse is found in neuroscientific research on how and to what extent ingestion of drugs or alcohol impacts the brain and brain function. - (^) Substance abuse was declared a disease in the 1950s by the AMA, APA, etc.

Substance Use Disorders

• (^) The basis for the disease model of substance abuse is found in neuroscientific research on how and to what extent ingestion of drugs or alcohol impacts the brain and brain function.
• (^) Addictive drugs work through the reward regions of the brain by releasing dopamine , the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward.

Neuroplasticity

• (^) The brain is malleable. It changes during the normal course of development. It also changes over the life course in response to a variety of stimuli.
• (^) This is called neuroplasticity.
• (^) Substance abuse can change the structure and functioning of the brain.

Substance Use Disorders

• (^) Whether drug and alcohol abuse cause crime, facilitate crime, or individuals commit crime to support their use is not all that important. Drugs and alcohol are clearly implicated in the vast majority of crime.

Substance Abuse and Neurocognitive

Impairment

• (^) It is not difficult to see how one or more of these impairments have behavioral consequences, including criminality - (^) Lack of self control - (^) Being present-oriented - (^) Attention deficit

Mental Illness in the General Population

• (^) 25% of the U.S. population, or 62 million individuals has a diagnosable mental disorder - (^) It is higher now because of COVID by maybe 3 to 5 percentage points
• (^) 6% of the U.S. population suffers from a serious mental illness, which includes schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression
• (^) Nearly one-half of individuals with any mental health disorder have at least one co-occurring mental disorder

Mental Illness in the CJS

• (^) Prevalence of serious mental illness is somewhere around 20%, compared to 6% of the general population

Mental Illness

• (^) Research indicates that mental illness both pre- dates incarceration and is a result of incarceration. Many of the most common mental disorders identified among prison inmates originate in childhood and adolescence - (^) ACES