Race, Gender, and the Social Construction of Mental Illness in the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

This article tests whether perceptions of “normal” defendants influence the use of psychiatric evaluations in the criminal justice system. The author theorizes that typifications–or taken-for-granted assumptions–of African Americans as “criminals” and women as “mentally ill” will influence court actors' perceptions of the rationality of a defendant's criminal actions. Using case-control sampling methods, the author compiled data from a large Midwestern county to examine the demographic, familial, legal, and psychiatric predictors of which felony defendants receive a psychiatric evaluation; these psychiatric evaluations are indications that the defendant may be considered exempt from criminal responsibility. Using logistic regression, the author finds that mental health status is the best predictor of psychiatric evaluations but that criminal justice decision-makers' attributions of criminal responsibility are also influenced by typifications of defendants based on race and gender.