Answer discussion question 8. Respond to 3 classmates 250 words each.
Discussion #8: This week’s reading provides an overview of mental health courts in American society. After reviewing the week 8 lesson for this week; in your own words discuss at least one item you learned from each week’s lesson in the course covering weeks 1-7. Please arrange your post by weeks starting with week 1 and ending with week 7. You will notice that the re-cap in the week 8 lesson is also arranged by weeks.
Objective:
CO1: Summarize the link between mental illness and criminal behavior.
Classmate 1 Allen: I hope everyone is doing well and that their projects are coming along as planned. Here is what I have learned these past eight weeks in chronological order:
Week 1
In the first week I learned that despite historical practices that placed mentally ill offenders in institutional settings, we now have more community care-based treatment options and the mentally ill have at times been diverted from correctional facilities. Allowing disordered people to stay in public has been scrutinized because of recent shootings in the United States where mentally ill citizens have committed large acts of violence that have shocked the nation.
Excerpt from Week 1 Forum: “These current events like the Columbine shooting, the Vegas Shooting, and the Charleston Church Shooting paint the mentally in a negative light. Stone (2015) conducted research on mental health and mass killers and concluded that in the time span of 1913 to 2015, 46 men and 6 women were mentally ill. This was out of 228 murderers and made up 23%. This is a much lower number than what the media and public perceive it to be.”
Week 2
In week two I learned the types of crimes that a person with antisocial personality disorder are most likely to commit.
Excerpt from Week 2 Forum: “with aggressive behavior a person can be subject to communicating threats, affrays between other people, assaults, and arrests. Destructive behaviors can as small as vandalism or damage to personal property and on the other side of the same spectrum could be related to arson investigations that are potentially linked to the death of a person or massive property damage. Deceitful behavior could be most scene in fraud’s, thefts or property and or services, or obtaining property under false pretenses.”
Week 3
In week three I learned the diagnostic criteria of Conduct Disorder.
Excerpt from Week 3 Forum: ”A repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated, as manifested by the presence of three (or more) of the following criteria in the past 12 months, with at least one criterion present in the past six months”
Week 4
In week four I learned about the Acropolis, and the Parthenon while in Greece 😊. In class I learned about Pedophilia and what is clinically pedophilia, and what is not. This is specifically involves the attraction to pre-pubescent and post-pubescent children.
Excerpt from Week 4 Forum: “To be diagnosed with this disorder a person must experience intense sexually arousing fantasies or urges involving sexual activity with prepubescent children, over a period of at least six months, the individual has acted on these sexual urges, or the urges have caused serious distress.”
Week 5
In week five I learned about fetishes and how they are and are not illegal depending on the place in the world and the time period at the time. For instance in America, it is illegal to have sexual intercourse with an animal but having consensual intercourse that includes a lesser degree of pain and potentially torture is not a crime.
Excerpt from Week 5 Forum: “One behavior that I wanted to highlight is Bestiality. Zoophilia is having a sexual fixation on non-human animals. Bestiality is cross-species sexual activity between a human and other animal. That all being said, having a sexual fixation on animals is not illegal. But, carrying out that fetish is a criminal act. If looking at a part of the body or other object, it depends on the circumstances in which the sexual act is carried out.”
Week 6
In week six I learned about misconceptions and myths regarding sadism and serial murders. One of the most common myths being that sex offenders are a result of childhood trauma. This lacks evidence and has not been objectively proven.
Excerpt from Week 6 Forum: “Another misconception is that these sex offenders are a result of childhood trauma. This is based on little objective evidence and actually there is no firm link showing that men who are abused as child will later on become an offender. (Fedoroff,