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Adding insult to injury
Posted Wednesday 16 November 2011
This is a guest blog by Sian Greenhead, a researcher with Victim Support.
Imagine the scene – you are travelling home on the bus with a friend after a night at the cinema, engrossed in an animated debate about the film. Your friend nearly misses her stop as a result and waves you a frantic goodbye as she rushes off the bus.
Another 10 minutes and you reach your stop. Stepping off the bus you pause for a moment, rummaging through your bag for your mp3 player.
Out of nowhere you feel a blow to your right cheek and then another directly to your forehead. You fall to the ground, confused and disorientated.
Someone kicks you hard in the ribs and shouts “give me your bag!”. You look up and see a figure standing above you. “Your bag!” he shouts again. You throw it towards him, heart racing and fear rising rapidly from the pit of your stomach.
He grabs your bag and disappears into the night. You lie on the pavement stunned, disorientated and frightened…
This happened to Dan two months ago in West London. Dan has bipolar disorder, experiencing frequent periods of severe depression which can make it difficult for him to leave the house and see other people.
This was not the first time he has been a victim of crime. Some months before he was mugged by a group of teenagers. On that occasion it had been broad daylight and no one had intervened.
Unsurprisingly these experiences have left him shaken and distressed. What is perhaps more surprising is that he didn’t report either incident to the police.
Dan is someone I interviewed recently as part of the Mental Health and Justice Research Project. This is a three-year research study being led by Victim Support in partnership with Mind and a number of London Universities including the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London.
We are investigating experiences of victimisation among people with mental health problems, building upon earlier work by Mind detailed in the 2007 report, Another assault.
Another assault highlighted that a shocking 71 per cent of people with mental health problems had been victims of crime or harassment in the last two years. Added to this, the report showed that people felt disempowered to speak out about their experiences and those that did were largely disappointed with the overall response from the authorities.
When I asked Dan why he didn’t report either incident, he told me about a previous experience he’d had reporting a mugging. In this instance he’d disclosed that he had bipolar disorder and as a result he felt he was treated differently, not taken seriously, and directed to the community mental health services rather than dealt with by the criminal justice agencies.
He was also advised to go out less and avoid certain areas in order to reduce the chance of something like this happening again. This made him feel that he was to blame for being mugged and when he thought about this later, he felt angry that he was expected to change his behaviour because of someone else’s criminality. He wondered whether he would have been given the same advice if he did not have a mental health condition.
The purpose of the Mental Health and Justice Research study I’m working on is to delve into these issues further so we can develop a better understanding of the experiences of people with mental health problems as victims of crime and the responses to this victimisation. By doing so, we hope to support the development of measures that can reduce vulnerability to crime and ensure fair and equal access to the justice system.
So, if like Dan you want to share your experience, have your say and contribute to change, then get involved. Visit the Victim Support website to find out how you can take part in our study.
Sian Greenhead is a researcher for the Mental Health and Justice Project, run by Victim Support.
5 Comments
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I have found that even if you report an incident, very little happens, unless you have some evidence like CCTV, if there is any work to be done the police aren't interested, in one case I was involved in, a car was parked across a drive blocking my car in (I was trying to go a chemist before it closed to collect some medication) when I spoke to the driver, she tried to run me over, when the police arrived, I was arrested for criminal damage to her car! in the end the charges where dropped against me, but it changed my view of the police and I've not seen anything to change my mind in recent years.
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Me too - when I was stalked they failed to collect CCTV evidence and "lost" other evidence. I was told that it was probably harder for me to cope with than a "normal person" and that it would have been easier to prove if it been rape or murder. Mental health problems = not a credible witness for court, you have more credibility with a criminal record - at least that can't be brought up in court but psych history means defence uses it to discredit - your mental health becomes their defence case.
No point in reporting sexual assualt within services either, if it's a fellow service user then the police 'persuade' you to not press charges if they come at all. I've seen sexual harassment between users be a source of entertainment for staff, it's been quite amusing to them. As for reporting harassment or worse by staff - don't bother, it will only ensure your diagnosis gets changed to BPD because that's the most effective way to discredit a woman permanently.
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I was assaulted by a male patient that everyone knew was a dirty old man, where were the staff? sitting in the office of course. With my BDP diagnosis I wouldn't go within a million miles of the police they couldn't care less if you were murdered, quite keen to come down on you like a ton of bricks if yoou do anything though. When I suffered yearws of being psychologically bullied by a niegbour I cracked and scratched her garage door, needless to say she wanted me prosecuted, no frewer than four police came to my house. Yet what that woman did to me was worse than any physical assault sometimes I wished she'd killed me but she worked within the law, making malicious calls to social services and prospecteve employers, (all annoymouse of course)I havn't had a job since. Now I have to watch her happily get on with her life while mine is over.
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mindreader:
"As for reporting harassment or worse by staff - don't bother, it will only ensure your diagnosis gets changed to BPD because that's the most effective way to discredit a woman permanently."
Took the words right out of my mouth there.
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Really sorry Linda for your experiences, and yes dymphna, you've obviously seen this happen to others too - the PD groups should look at stuff like this, how the diagnosis is used to effectively perpetrate further abuse. A diagnosis of PD is the worst to have as a victim and of course for offenders PD is the more likely tag to be attached of all diagnoses. Health and criminal justice services can't make their minds up as to whether PD is mad or bad hence the discussion around transferring people from high secure to prisons [meaning they are bad not mad] but then "treating" them within specific PD units in prisons - confused? me too. They like to associate PD with criminality but if people get stuck in prison I guess it's saying you know exactly what you're doing so are being punished but we'll still treat a 'disorder' [even though we still view it as untreatable]. As for victims already saddled with a PD tag - well it was probably part of your disorder you probably 'sought' out being a victim even unconsciously [yep that has been said]. Then the media get confused and call anyone with a PD or psychosis tag 'psychopathic'. Gruesome murders, even Bin Laden were described as 'psychotic' because psychotic/Schizophrenic/PD/psychopathic are all interchangeable terms for the media to add great heinousness to a crime irrespective of whether the individual has ever had that diagnosis. It's like adding the fake blood to costume fangs for better effect. However the victims with any of these diagnoses don't matter a dot because they MUST have done something to provoke it by virtue of not being 'normal'
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