Schizophrenics who also abuse alcohol or drugs are four times as likely to commit a violent crime than the average person.
In contrast, among those who are clean the risk is only 1.2 times the average.
Dr Seena Fazel, researcher from Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry said, “we found that the risk of violent crime committed by people with schizophrenia is a lot lower than people might expect.”
The findings suggest that substance abuse treatment may help control the rate of violent crime among schizophrenics. Currently, up to 5% of violent crimes in society are committed by schizophrenics, among whom 30-40% are alcoholics and 10-15% abuse drugs.
