There is no natural connection between mental illness and violent crimes
An analysis of Irelands Independents article about a man who killed his parents while having severe delusions.
A man in Ireland killed his parents while having severe delusions. The man has the mental illness paranoid schizophrenia and after pleading for not guilty by reason of insanity, the man has been committed to the Central Mental Hospital for inpatient care.
The headline of the article unfortunately already suggests a natural connection between a violent crime and the mental illness paranoid schizophrenia.
“Man suffering from paranoid schizophrenia who killed his parents with axe is committed to Central Mental Hospital”
Rather than formulating it the way they did I would encourage to reformulate it in a way that doesn’t suggest that natural connection between mental illness and violent crime. A possible way could be:
“Man killed his parents while having severe delusions is now committed to Central Mental Hospital”
The article also uses the term “suffering from” as in “suffering from paranoid schizophrenia” or “suffering from psychotic symptoms” several times which implements that the person having that mental illness or characteristic is actually suffering from it. It would be less downgrading to simply say “has paranoid schizophrenia” or “has depression”.
I would also stay neutral and with the important information as the following highlighted part is more targeted towards touching emotions by showing how the man’s mental illness ‘destroyed’ his life.
A similar argument can be made with the following part in which the report gets dramatized by repeating the highlighted part. I would suggest leaving out the last part that says “Six days later Julian killed both his parents with an axe.” As the plump style of that sentence and the fact that the information was already said just serves to shock the reader to again get an emotional reaction.
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