"Sufferers are no more dangerous than anyone else. Don't believe me? Then look in the paper and you'll see most crimes are committed by the sane."
This is a fallacious argument. Non-schizophrenics outnumber schizophrenics by a huge margin. Schizophrenics could, hypothetically, be ten times as dangerous and most crimes would still be committed by sane people.
This study is somewhat outdated (1990), but: "The crime rate among male schizophrenics was almost the same as that in the general male population, whereas among females it was twice that of the general female population. The rate of violent offences was, however, four times higher among the schizophrenics." http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/157/3/345
In other words, making friends with a schizophrenic should make you about as afraid of violent crime as making friends with four non-schizophrenics would make you, assuming your friends are representative of the general population.
This is a fallacious argument. Non-schizophrenics outnumber schizophrenics by a huge margin. Schizophrenics could, hypothetically, be ten times as dangerous and most crimes would still be committed by sane people.
This study is somewhat outdated (1990), but: "The crime rate among male schizophrenics was almost the same as that in the general male population, whereas among females it was twice that of the general female population. The rate of violent offences was, however, four times higher among the schizophrenics." http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/157/3/345
In other words, making friends with a schizophrenic should make you about as afraid of violent crime as making friends with four non-schizophrenics would make you, assuming your friends are representative of the general population.