Medications may reduce violent crime risk in those with mental illness

For people with severe psychiatric illness, taking an antipsychotic medication appears to drive down the risk of engaging in criminal violence, a large study has found. And for patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a mood-stabilizing medication has the same effect.

Those findings, emerging from a large and comprehensive study conducted in Sweden, suggest that when used by those with serious mental illness, these widely prescribed medications not only tame delusions, help restore emotional order and prevent relapses—they may also reduce the risk to the communities in which these patients live.