Premium
The relationship of mental illness to targeted contact behavior toward state government agencies and officials
Author(s) -
Scalora Mario J.,
Baumgartner Jerome V.,
Plank Gary L.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.525
Subject(s) - mental illness , agency (philosophy) , law enforcement , government (linguistics) , intervention (counseling) , state (computer science) , psychiatry , suicide prevention , psychology , poison control , criminology , human factors and ergonomics , mental health , medicine , political science , law , environmental health , sociology , social science , linguistics , philosophy , algorithm , computer science
Research in the burgeoning field of threat assessment has illuminated the importance of mental illness factors when considering risk of targeted violence—particularly related to government agencies and officials. The authors analyzed 127 cases investigated by a state law enforcement agency regarding threatening or other contacts toward public officials or state agency employees prompting security intervention. Univariate and discriminant analysis indicated that mentally ill subjects were significantly more likely to engage in more contacts as well as to make specific demands during such contacts. Mentally ill subjects were also more likely to articulate help‐seeking concerns and employ religious themes, as opposed to using insulting, degrading, or ominous language toward the target or issuing complaints regarding policy issues. Contrary to other research, the mentally ill subjects within this sample were not significantly more likely to engage in approach behavior, a threshold for higher risk of violence. Implications for threat assessment activity are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.