Borderline Personality Disorder Research Paper

550 Words3 Pages

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) affects approximately 1.6% of the United States population, which is roughly 5.2 million people diagnosed with it. BPD is a serious mental illness characterized by an inability to regulate emotional responses and moods, impacting self-image and interpersonal relationships. People with borderline personality disorder frequently have detrimental behavior such as spending, substance abuse, and sex addiction issues. They often perform recklessly while driving as well. This impulsive behavior causes them to have frequent interactions with the law. Even though juries are sometimes more sympathetic to people with mental illnesses, the influences’ BPD has on people's behavior, does not affect their competency and responsibility of their alleged crime or crimes. Because few juries or criminal courts exonerate people solely because of borderline characteristics or behavior, a person’s function, not their diagnosis, determines their competency and responsibility and the presence of borderline personality disorder rarely affects basic responsibility for the person’s actions, nor does it typically compromise most forms of competency. …show more content…

People with borderline personality disorder are regularly held accountable for their crimes. This is proven by studies that have been conducted on jury verdicts that show borderline personality disorder, does not typically influence the juror’s decisions. This verifies BPD does not have a major effect on jurors, especially when they are deciding whether the suspect is competent to stand trial and when they are deciding if the suspect is responsible for their

Open Document