Psychiatry, racism and crime: the case of Christoper Clunis reconsidered
Ian Cummins- 1University of Salford, United Kingdom
In December 2022, the death of Christopher Clunis was made public. He had actually died in February 2021. Christopher Clunis was convicted of the manslaughter of a stranger, Jonathan Zito. He attacked Mr Zito at a train station. This paper will argue that this terrible event became a totemic symbol of the wider failings of the policy of community care. The image of Clunis being driven away from Court was repeatedly used in newspaper and other media reports as a reference point. The image reflects a number of long-standing traits in the representation of the “mentally ill.” These are combined with a racial stereotype of Black men. The paper examines historical representations of the mentally ill as a context for a discussion of the Clunis case. The paper uses the work of Stuart Hall as an analytical tool to examine the questions of race and representation, and the moral panic following failings of community care
Keywords: Psychiatry, Racism, deinstitutionalisation, representation, mental illness
Received: 06 Nov 2023;
Accepted: 10 Jan 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Cummins. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mx. Ian Cummins, University of Salford, Salford, United Kingdom