Anything you eat, anything you see, anything you read. In most patients with schizophrenia, this constellation of symptoms does not lead to behavior that is more violent on average than the rest of the population. Russell Weston Jr. Many do commit crimes, and that is why a number of people with schizophrenia are among the estimated 200,000 with severe mental illness who populate the nation's prisons. There are some forms of schizophrenia, particularly paranoid schizophrenia, where the patient develops a delusional system, and they do things that seem senseless to us, but make perfect sense within their system. And what we see as a wanton assault on innocent people, they basically may be seeing as a fight for their own survival.
Schizophrenia is characterized by a constellation of symptoms suffered for a number of months.
Broadcasting describes a type of delusion in which the individual with this illness believes that his thoughts can be heard by others. Such voices may describe the person's actions, warn him of danger or tell him what to do. At times the individual may hear several voices carrying on a conversation. For the Gurs and the hospital team, the special tragedy of Weston's case is that his rampage probably could have been prevented with the correct medication and other treatment. This has largely been true since the 1950s, with the introduction of the first effective anti-psychotic drugs including Thorazine.