Comment on the Association of Stigma With Violence

To the Editor: In a letter published in the March 2011 issue of the Journal (1), Dr. E. Fuller Torrey overstates our research findings in order to support his argument that there is stigma toward people with mental illness because of their violent behavior. He cites two studies as evidence that individuals with severe and untreated psychiatric disorders “are responsible for approximately 10% of the homicides in the United States.” While we cannot speak to the other study mentioned, our study (2) reported data on 95 individuals with severe mental illness who were convicted of murder and sentenced to incarceration at the Indiana Department of Corrections for the deaths of 130 people. Generalizing the findings from homicides in one state to all homicides committed in the recent past in the United States is misleading.