Mental illness
Findings show that people with a mental illness that live in the community will be victims of violence more often that they will be those starting or spreading it. A study that looked at people diagnosed with "severe mental illness" living in a US inner-city area found that a quarter of them had been victims of at least one violent crime over the course of a year; this proportion was eleven times higher than the average. For people which have been diagnosed with a mental illness it is more difficult to get a trial started, because fewer people believe them, and many people have a prejudice against people with a mental illness.