figures for life-sentenced offenders were substantially higher); with selected samples of offenders referred for psychiatric treatment, typically having committed serious offences, the incidence is much higher. For example, Green (1981) reports that 74 per cent of a sample of fifty-eight men admitted to a Special Hospital having committed matricide were schizophrenic. Does this suggest that schizophrenia is related to serious offences? As Spry notes, many people associate schizophrenia with crime, particularly violent crime. Indeed, there are indications that a relationship may exist between paranoid ideas and violence, and that the victims of violent attacks are often those who figured in the schizophrenic's delusions (Hafner and Boker 1982; Planansky and Johnston 1977). Crimes of this type catch the public imagination: Prins (1986) notes the case of Ian Ball, in which delusional thought processes were manifest in a plot to kidnap a member of the royal family: Prins (1983; 1986) discusses the crimes of Peter Sutcliffe, the `Yorkshire Ripper', in which there was some controversy as to the role of his paranoid schizophrenia in the murders he committed. It should be stressed, however, that the publicity generated by these cases is in inverse proportion to their frequency; the deluded and paranoid people who commit such crimes are rare.While these extreme cases are infrequent, the finding remains that schizophrenics are slightly more likely to commit violent offences than other disordered groups or the general population (Sosowsky 1978). While schizophrenia may be directly related to violence, with delusional and paranoid beliefs of apparent importance, a simple relationship between the disorder and the crime is unlikely to exist. P.J. Taylor suggests that: `It is not unusual to find that the violent act of a schizophrenic cannot be directly explained by the current psychopathology. This does not, however, negate the relevance of the illn...
